It's All About the Process

May 2 Dream

I was standing in line to get into heaven. Apparently, each person who entered had to be "processed" before being let in. So as I "come to" in this dream awareness, I was standing 3rd back in the line, observing what was going on:

Behind me was a long, single-file line that snaked around as far as the eye could see. Yes, we were standing among clouds. Cliche, I know, but don't shoot me - I'm just the dreamer.

In front of me were two people. The one directly in front of me was waiting to be processed, like I and the multitudes behind me were; the person in front of him was currently being interviewed by one of the two women who staffed this "department". The processing area consisted of a folding table; the filing system was a box of index cards which, I believe, contained the information on every person who was entering heaven. There was a single phone attached to a wall behind the folding table.

Despite the apparent inefficiency of the system, the women were pleasant enough and working quite diligently to get everyone processed. Occasionally one would pick up the phone and talk to God about the person being processed into heaven.

Though I feel no sense of hurriedness or impatience whatsoever, I was busy observing and analyzing what was going on around me. I find myself thinking “How could God’s procedures not be the most efficient of all? And what would God need to know or discuss with these women about each of us - doesn't He know it all already?”

As though reading my mind (I guess He does that!), He imparts into my thoughts, “It’s all about the process.” Though the phrase is simple, it comes with a complete understanding...that the point isn’t about being fast and efficient – it is about putting each of us through the process; and as we go through it, God watches our responses. In this particular scenario, He wanted to see if we responded with patience, peace, and kindness toward one another as we all waited together.

Thankfully, I was relieved to realize that I had been responding with great patience, being caught up in the moment. However, I had also been very observant and found myself thinking of ways they could streamline things. (Like God needs to learn anything from me. Hah!)

When I saw I was about to be next to be processed, I looked at the line behind me again and noticed my husband was standing about 6 or 7 people behind me. I thought, "I could help his process go better if he could observe mine, as I had been observing those ahead of me in order to prepare myself." So I called him forward. He was very calm and in the moment, too. Though he didn't seem to be in any particular hurry to get to the head of the line, when he saw me beckon to him, he came up to stand next to me. Only then did I realize I’d actually invited him to cut in front of several other people; and I felt really bad when I realized it.

The dream scene switches suddenly here, but interestingly, it reiterates the same theme.

I am already in heaven, but my husband isn't yet, so I am trying to call him from my cell phone to let him know what to expect. But the connection is terrible, with much interference, and always at the most inopportune times! It was as though every time I got to a juicy piece of information I thought he'd need to know, we'd get nothing but static. (Apparently, the Verizon herd can only follow a person so far!)

Then I suddenly "got it"...God didn’t WANT me prepping my husband for heaven. He wanted my husband to experience the passage on his own, to go through his OWN process.

Again, it was all about the importance of the process - that it's not about knowing what to expect before you get there, and not about speed or efficiency in getting there, either. It's about each person experiencing his or her own process in life, and probably in the afterlife, as well. We can't do it for each other. It's uniquely personal, between us and God alone.

This dream reminded me of Luke 16:

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19"There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.
22"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23In hell,[c] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'
25"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'
27"He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'
29"Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'
30" 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'
31"He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.'

I think that story pretty much summed up my dream – God doesn’t want us to come back and tell each other the scoop…we must go through the process and experience things in our own right - it's how we learn and grow and develop perseverance, faith, character, and all that good stuff.

If It Matters Here, It Must Matter There!

May 25, 2009

I still haven’t figured this one out very well, but somehow I believe there is truth here.

I dreamed last night about our stewardship in all areas of life, and how it will count in our heavenly lives. Mind you, this is the one area in my faith that just makes me cringe...I feel like I am always struggling to be a good steward of my finances, my body, the environment, etc. I know it's all about discipline, but ... well, a girl has just GOT to have some fun, sometimes! Doesn't she?

In the first scene of the dream, I remember being asked to open my hand and show the coins I had brought with me to heaven (all coins…there was no paper money in heaven…maybe that’s a lesson in wise investing! :) ) It seemed like God wanted to see how we had managed our money, and that somehow what we were holding tightly in the palm of our hands as we entered heaven would be an indicator of our earthly financial stewardship. (What will happen if I open my hand to reveal a charge card, I wonder??????)

Then I was paired off with my little sister. We were told to go into a curtained area and inspect each other's physical beings for disease or brokenness or imperfection. We were then to give an account of our findings, as an indicator of our stewardship of our bodies while on earth. My sister passed with flying colors – her physical being was not only perfect and flawless, but she was also bejeweled! She had received a jade implanted on the back of her shoulder blade as she entered heaven. Cool! She would have inspected me next but I woke up. (Pshew – time to redeem myself and start that diet I’ve been avoiding!)

That’s all I remember of the dream sequence; but the pivotal thing that stuck in my mind was the theme of how our stewardship over all things in life will have heavenly ramifications that we will have to answer to when we get there. Secondarily, I sensed that we would also be called to be stewards in heaven, and that the lessons learned, or not learned, on earth will directly impact our assignments as stewards over things in heaven…but what things? To be continued, perhaps, in another dream?…

All About Him, All for Us

May 1st

For the past several weeks, the worship band and I have been working on a song called "All About You". That title also happens to have been a personal "mantra" throughout my worship leading career. It is extremely challenging to participate in music, which is inherently "me-focused" (do I suck as bad as I think I do? OR wow, we really sounded good today!), as a ministry, in which the ideal is to be purely Christ-focused (if any of you worship leaders has succeeded in this paradigm shift, please share your secrets!).

During these same weeks, I have been praying earnestly for someone very dear to me who, as far as I know, is not a believer. He has recently been diagnosed with a serious illness, so I've been interceding mightily and frequently on his behalf.

As I prayed for him early one morning, the phrase "trouble the waters" wafted into my mind. I knew it to be a reference to John 5, the story of the paralyzed man who for 38 years had tried in vain to be the first one to wade into the healing waters of Bethesda, where annually the "angel of the Lord" would come and "trouble" (or stir up) the waters. The belief was that the first one to wade into the waters would be healed. But this poor guy, being paralyzed, never made it in first.

6When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"
7"Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me."
8Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." 9At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day after this prayer session where the phrase "trouble the waters" came to mind, I heard a sermon on this very passage! The pastor talked about how we can be paralyzed by a lack of faith. He also said that Jesus' command to pick up the mat and walk was symbolic of taking up the decision to believe, standing on that decision, and finally moving, or walking, in faith.

I also found it personally interesting that Jesus didn't help drag this guy to the water so he could be the first one in and thus be healed, as one would expect: instead, He asked the man, "Do you want to be healed?" And the guy is like, "Wah, wah, wah, yada yada, it's all their fault, they won't help me, poor me." But Jesus doesn't seem to care one bit about what the other folks did or didn't do, and He doesn't seem especially moved by the man's self-pity. He simply says, "Then get up and walk!"

That speaks to me of escaping the "paralysis" of self-pity and helplessness we allow ourselves to fall into as we focusing on ourselves (poor me) and others (it's all someone else's fault), and instead taking authority over our own attitudes and actions.

So on the heels of all this reflection, I had the following dream:

I am standing in a small lake or pool of water. It is briskly cold, and a deep, cobalt blue. On the banks of the water, facing me, stands this person I know and love who was just diagnosed with cancer. I am trying to convince him to please, please, please, just wade into the water toward me, and he would be made well. But he stands firmly on the bank, irritated and impatient with me, tired of my religious talk. I beg and plead with him for some time, to no avail. Finally, he makes a dismissive remark and turns away, choosing instead to walk and talk with someone else on the same side of the lake as he. I feel hurt and rejected, but mostly frustrated and deeply saddened that he won't take that step of faith that could save his life.

At that moment I realize the song "All About You" is playing in my head. I am immediately ashamed; for once again, I have caught myself thinking first about my own sense of hurt and rejection instead of keeping my focus on Christ and His will for this dear man. "I'm sorry, Lord," I pray, smiling ruefully at my own foolishness. "I know it’s not about me…it’s all about You."

Immediately the Lord speaks gently and so lovingly into my mind: “Yes, it's all about Me - but it’s all FOR you.” (NOTE: I understand the word "you" as collective - i.e., not just me, but all of humanity). And it takes my breath away.

This dream taught me that the real truth is this: God's first commandment to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength (keeping the focus on Christ) is NOT because he's an insatiable, jealous, controlling egomaniac; it's because as we pour our hearts and minds into Him, He in turn pours His very Self back into us, giving us life and hope, provision and protection, renewal and healing, freedom and peace.

What He wants from us, I believe, is to enter into a mutual love relationship with Him, not submit to some deity dictatorship, as so many believe is the case. That's why He gave us free will! He doesn't want a bunch of robots He can program to do what He says (or that's what He would have created)! He gave us the choice to love Him and trust Him. The natural consequence of that love and trust is to obey Him, because we learn that His will is ultimately for our best and highest good!

Yes, it's all about Me (keep your focus on me), for through Me will come everything you need, and even more than you could ever ask or imagine (but it's all FOR you).

What a loving and grace-filled gift Christ gives in pouring out Himself for us. It's already been given. All we have to do is accept it so it isn't wasted in our lives.

The Test Drive of a Lifetime

Welcome to my maiden voyage as a blogger!

I am starting a blog because for some time, I have been feeling led to share some of the thoughts, dreams and answered prayers that have helped encourage and inspire me through the years. Though I've been enjoying for many years now a sense of God's presence with me, and an experience of being discipled, guided, led and instructed about heavenly realities that help shed life on earthly dilemmas, trying to share these experiences with others has always been a challenge. God's "still, small voice" is so personal and so - well - a wisp of a whisper on the wind - how do you capture and communicate such things with our limited human vocabularly?

Or should our personal inspirations be shared at all? Maybe not always - sometimes, perhaps, they are simply meant as nourishment for our personal edification. Other times, though, I think the inner growth that results from times of adversity might, if shared, be just the encouragement that might help the next person through what might seem an impossible time in his or her life. And if my experiences can help ease someone else's pain, I am privileged to be the fool who attempts to give form and substance to what I perceive to be eternal truths.

What are my qualifications? None whatsoever, other than the fact I've survived - and even, despite myself, thrived - in this life for over half a century.

But I have always been a seeker after truth. Sometimes that seeking led me down some dead end tunnels in the maze of possible truths.

I grew up in a small, country church (great social club but scant spiritual development), stopped going in 6th grade, then studied the New Age for 15 years (another dead-end tunnel, as much as I had wanted it to be something of substance); and finally, at age 31, read the Bible (I'd searched for the truth everywhere else but there, somehow).

I initially read the Bible in the hopes that its message would align with my metaphysical, Eastern and new age studies...("why can't we all just get along?"); but alas, it did not. In fact, reading scriptures forced me to make a decision. Suddenly, I found myself standing at the fork in the road of my very culturally relevant and popular new age views, at the juncture where they diverged from the straight and narrow road the Bible purported to be the Truth.

At this crossroads of belief systems that would, I hoped, be able to guide me for the rest of my days, I had to choose which direction to take. Having already trod the one and found it to be the Road to Nowhere, I decided to try the as-yet untrodden path of Christianity. Though I didn't understand it all, and frankly found some of it pretty hard to swallow, I promised the Lord I'd at least try to live as though I "got it" - you know - walk by faith and not by sight, and all that. I would try to accept that I didn't have to know the answers to everything, and instead just trust what the Bible said and walk in that way - i.e., give God's road a test drive, as it were.

That was 26 years ago, and I've never turned back. That "test drive" completely changed my life and continues to change my life, always for the better. I have been given a calling to serve in the church, and over the past 15 years have been privileged to be on staff at two wonderful churches (Presbyterian and Methodist), serving a dual role in each as both worship leader and executive assistant/secretary. I have been instructed by some of their best theologians, healed through the ministries of their very gifted prayer ministers, discipled via the guidance and wisdom of many devoted servants of Christ, and mentored and inspired by some of the most respected and gifted worship leaders of our time. I am, indeed, blessed beyond anything I could ever have imagined for myself, and I live each day in gratitude for God's continued favor on my life.

So that's what this blog will reflect - what I have learned, and continue to learn, on my journey. Many lessons have been learned via The School of Hard Knocks, of which we are all alumni. But much wisdom has also come through answers to prayers, which God seems to virtually drop into my mind as I converse with Him. I know these things are not from my own earthly mind, as they are truths of such wonder and wisdom as I could never figure out on my own. Other inspirations come to me through dreams of crystal clarity that sometimes come true, and other times simply reveal a truth about this life, or the heavenly life to come, in a new and profound way. At other times, my dreams reveal to me with fresh insight the reality of a situation that in my waking hours is clouded by emotion or misjudgment.

Thus the name of my blog - DreamSpirations, which is inspired by Joel 2:28, which says that in the day of the Lord, "I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions."

I don't know how often I'll have anything to post, or how much time I'll have to keep up. But my prayer is that as the Lord blesses me with inspirations, dreams, visions or answerd prayers, my sharing them might also bless and encourage others.

Or, if nothing else, may they give you a good chuckle.

Peace be with you!