Dear Abba, I’m starting out free today, free from the advertised lies that promise me everything from four-doors of turbo-charged happiness to some contraption that will shake, rattle, and roll my abs back into a pack I never had even in my twenties. It would be comical if it wasn’t so sad: all of our desires to make ourselves worthy of this world but unfit for the world to come. I want to be a follower of the sacred dream, and one day arrive fully free, free at last.
~Brennan Manning
But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
~ Peter in Acts 2, Quoting The Prophet Joel
Oh beloved, it is true. The work He is doing in our lives is so hard to see in this life. We struggle to enter into the rest He has for us. But the gauntlet to the stillness beats us up and leaves us raw. We miss the goodness and progress for the process we are going through.
But there is a place where we get a clear view.
Dreams.
As we let go, there does come a place in us that is quiet and whole and real and able to see what we are becoming. It is a place where the truth can be spoken unabashed, though it may be in symbols. But if we listen, we can see how far He has brought us.
Usually, a dream is the first place we see a breakthrough. It may take weeks or months for our dull and conscious life to catch up with the reality that is taking hold inside of us. The buzzing and crackling distraction of “life” in this world often distract us from the deeper life going on in the inner man of our being.
And sometimes, a dream takes us completely by surprise. We find out something is true that we never thought could be true. A dearly beloved friend of mine communicated a dream to me this week. She had undergone years of hurt from a former husband.
And while all conflict in a marriage is two-sided, this guy had really done some things that would damage just about any human being with a pulse. I came to know this lady a few years ago, and have had the joy of being a travelling companion with her, on her journey to wholeness and life and light and hope and joy.
She has been moving in that direction with greater and greater purpose since April of this year. She is gaining momentum and has broken into a near run towards the center of His Presence, as the weights of the past fall from her shoulders, she rarely even looks back.
I have had the honor of watching her wax strong in The L_RD. Things that used to take her completely off of her game, are now often but dust on the path. She is beginning to laugh at the future, and even to anticipate with joy the challenges in her ministry.
But one thing was holding her back. The past pain of her former husband haunted her. She had forgiven the man, but as is natural, there were still moments where the truly bad memories pulsed and invaded the interactions she was having in the present.
Anyway… The dream.
This woman came to me and said that she had had a curious dream. She saw the former husband and was happy to see him. She asked him how he was doing, and he also responded that he was doing fine and was happy. She called her current husband over to meet the former – and the dream faded out.
She asked me, “What do you think it means?”
This one was easy.
“Dear friend, you have reached the final stage of forgiveness. You now want good for your offender. You have put the place of vengeance and justice where it belongs. You have left it with your Maker, and now all you have left is Love for the man. Daughter of Christ. You are free.”
And this beloved friend just smiled.
Yeah, days like this are what make helping people worth it. To see a woman so free in the Spirit after being under so many layers of pain and tons of memories weighing her down. What a joy!
So, do you feel like you are not making any progress in your waking hours? Listen 24 hours a day beloved. He may be giving you too a progress report in your dreams. Sleep well, and may He show you what you need to see this very night.
The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul, which opens into that primeval cosmic night that was soul long before there was a conscious ego and will be soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach.
~Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
