The Dream

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.