I had a strange dream one night not long
ago. Ironically, in the dream, I was
waking from a dream. The dream inside of
the dream was that the past forty years of my life had been the imaginations of
a sleeping brain. This life that I had
struggled through at times, and walked victoriously through at others, had been
nothing but a dream.
Forty years ago next month, I committed my life
to Jesus Christ. On that night, I confessed that I was a sinner, asked Jesus
Christ to be my Savior and, in the peace following that prayer, I fell asleep. The dream I dreamed was that my life, since I
fell asleep that night four decades ago, had been in the imagination of my unconscious
cerebrum. The Christian walk I had thought I had walked had been nothing other
than the nocturnal ramblings of my gray matter.
In essence, I woke up starting the first day of my walk with Christ.
Now, I have never been good at remembering dreams,
and that remained true of this one. What
is vivid, however, is the range of emotions that I felt when I realized that my
life as a follower of Christ was truly just beginning. The slate was clean. The canvas was blank, and ready to be painted. And, what I had thought was going to be the
story of my life, had been nothing but visualizations of a brain doing what a
slumbering brain does.
The first emotion was one of relief. Even in my unconscious state, I realized that
a forty year dream would have been a long one, but the first feeling I had was
of relief. I had not yet run the
race. While I was preparing to finish
the race, the race had not even started for me.
I would be able to run it stronger, jump the hurdles that had tripped me
up, and avoid the valleys that had bogged me down. I would bury myself in God’s word and bathe
myself in prayer. I would keep my eyes
on the prize and not let anything detour me.
There would be success where there had been failure, strength where
there had been weakness, and victory where there had been defeat. For an instant the excitement of starting the
race anew flowed over me.
But the relief and excitement rather quickly
gave way to disappointment. Rather than
being thrilled that I got to do it again, I faced the discouraged realization
that I had to do it again. For sure,
there have been utterly beautiful times in my life that I would like to relive. But for every one of those times, there have
been bitterly destructive times filled with shame and regret for how I have
trampled on the grace of Christ. Even as
I told myself, as I woke from the dream, that I would walk more faithfully,
love the Father more deeply, and serve Christ more devotedly, I knew that I
wouldn’t. I knew that my youthful pride
and arrogance would not tolerate that any more than my self-sufficiency would
permit it.
Indeed, it was my pride, arrogance, and
self-sufficiency that caused the initial rush of elation when I first woke from
the dream, as they teamed up to assure me that it would be different now that I
knew where the pitfalls and valleys were.
But the realization soon came that it was through the pitfalls and valleys
where the God diminishing characteristics that were assuring my ego that we
would be successful this time around were drained away.
With this awareness, I understood that I could
not avoid the dark places, because it had been in the dark places where my
Father had done some of his deepest work.
As he carried me through the valleys of my sin and rebellion, I am
convinced that it was there that he did some of his most profound shaping. I have been shaped more in the valleys than
on any mountaintop. He has carved and
molded me more in the quiet places than in the most ardent worship, the dark
places rather than the sunny, the gloomy places more than the joyful. It was in the shadows where self sufficiency
was drained away and God dependency grew.
And, as grateful as I am of the work my Father has done in those places,
I do not want to walk them again. While
I am grateful for the refining work of the fire and the transformations it has
brought about, I have no desire to experience them again.
I realize that through the flames, I have
experienced the grace and mercy of Christ in ways that could never have been accomplished
apart from them. Because of them, I
stand firmly on the grace poured out on the cross, and put no confidence in my
flesh. I realize that what God wants to
do in me, is more important than anything I feel that I need to do for him.
To be clear, I am not claiming that God walked
me into darkness in those seasons in my life so that he could mold and form
me. I took myself to those places
through sin and rebellion. My pride, arrogance
and ego dragged me into the valleys. But
there was a thickness of the presence of God in those dark nights of the soul
that chipped away at those prideful character flaws that had led me there.
Everyone suffers. Some suffering is self-inflicted. Some just comes from walking through a sinful
world. But the truth I have learned
about my Father in those dark places is that he redeems our suffering. He does not waste even one of our
sorrows. He does not squander our pain. In a way only the creator and sustainer of
all things can, he uses those seasons for his glory and, ultimately, for our
good.
In
these seasons, I have learned the depth of the grace and mercy Christ poured
out for me on that cross. God has
imprinted Paul’s words somewhere deep within my soul, “For by grace you have
been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of
God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” It is that rhythm of grace that beats deep
within me.
And,
while I am thankful for the work God has done in those seasons of desperation, and while I praise him for opening my eyes to
the depths of his mercy, I have no desire to walk through them again. I am happy to be nearing the end of this
journey, to be on this side of the race, to be looking toward the prize of the
upward call of God in Christ Jesus. I am
content with that. I am satisfied with
that. And, I am happy the dream was only
a dream.
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