Sleepy-time Dreams

The Lord is so faithful to continue to work even when I am a mess! I have drifted back into the all too familiar numbness that I thought I had overcome or at least was getting better at avoiding. I am indifferent to more than I want to admit and feel as though I am just running through the motions of daily life. Odd to say, but in many ways I would rather feel broken than dead. I am able to recognize that I have a problem, yet feel incapable of changing it. It amazes me that so often I long for intimacy and deep relationships, but avoid many of the opportunities for this, or when presented the opportunity, I do not know how to cultivate intimacy. I don't want to analyze this right now.

So on another note, I've had some interesting dreams lately...

DREAMS, DREAMS, and MORE DREAMS

Prior to recounting any of these dreams, I must attach a few caveats. First, some dreams I believe are very clearly from the Lord, while others are not. I will attempt to clearly state which category I think each dream falls into. Second, this is partially written for documentation. I will also try to state the timeline of when this dream occurred. Third, I do not know how to interpret dreams, but pray that at some point these will make sense. Fourth, I am not suicidal. These dreams have been a little odd, but I am not thinking about taking my own life and am very thankful that my life is in the hands of Jesus. 

Dream 1: Suicide Bombers

When I woke up from this dream today, I knew immediately that it was just an odd dream with no meaning aside from an overactive imagination. 

I was at the beach and a van began to drive into the ocean. As soon as it was submerged in the water, it exploded. I automatically knew that their goal was to cause such a shock in the ocean great enough to create a tsunami. The 6 people in the van survived and walked out of the water while everyone on the beach was getting closer to the water to find out what had occurred. I wanted everyone to get away from the coast so they would not be overtaken by the tsunami, but I knew I had to speak quietly to get everyone's attention otherwise the suicide bombers would notice me. 

The next scene of this story was at the suicide bombers' house. They wanted me to go on vacation with them, but I felt this was just a trap to get me to die in one of their missions with them. I frantically searched for my phone and tried to text my parents to rescue me. Once I found my phone, I tried to conceal my texting to avoid the bombers noticing, but the last thing I remember is feeling stuck in the van as we drove towards our destination while sending a cryptic short text message that I hoped would get the attention of my family.

Dream 2: Over the Cliff

This dream took place two weeks ago, and the amazing calm I felt was definitely given by the Spirit. It was a Saturday morning that this took place, right before a busy Sunday, finals week, and two intense tests for work on Monday. 

I was driving down the road, and needed to turn left to go up a hill. As I stopped prior to turning left, a man came out and told me to wait to turn because they were pushing a car up the hill. He was right. As I looked to my left, a few people were pushing this little car. Finally, it was my turn, but as I began driving up the hill, all I saw was the horizon. It was as if my seat was laid back and I couldn't see the road, but I just continued driving. I didn't try to brake or sit up farther, I just kept driving. The car began to tip like it was falling over an edge, but I didn't try to stop it. I was completely calm as the car began to roll into the valley. 

As the car was rolling, the Lord and I just had a very calm conversation. I remember saying, "Okay, Lord. This is it." At one point, I felt bad for my car and briefly told it sorry prior to continuing my talk with God. I remember thinking of everything I was supposed to get done in the upcoming weeks and thought, "oh well! Everyone will manage without me getting done what I was supposed to. They'll understand." I was calm the entire time and felt like the Lord was so close. 

The car stopped rolling, and somehow at this point, I was in the rear passenger seat. I was still alone in the car, but no longer the driver. I was still alive and said aloud, "my parents will just meet me at the hospital" while at the same time knowing no one would know how to find me. This didn't worry me. Never was I concerned about anything that I should have been worried about. The Lord felt so near through this that I was sad to wake up. I wanted to go back to this place. 

These are only a few of the dreams I have had recently. I'm too tired to write more. Everything else will have to wait for another day. At least I managed to finally write today. :)

2012-2013

Today is the first day of 2013 and I know I need to write. I should have written weeks ago, but I having a difficult time thinking clearly and positively. I have a lot to be thankful for, but I am getting overwhelmed due to my lack of alone time. I forget how much healthier I am when I have time to think. The stack of books that I need to read is growing taller and homework has still not been done. I feel like days have gone by wasted, but in reality they were mainly spent with family and once in a while a few friends. I know that it is good to spend time with family, but I also look back and can't remember where the days went (disadvantage of not having a good memory) and have nothing to show for what was accomplished during them...Maybe I'll be able to finish this tomorrow after I get off work...
I think it's possible that I feel so lethargic about writing and opening up because I am feeling a lot of pressure from my family constantly when I am around to open up to them. I feel so emotionally exhausted from dodging their probing interrogation (that has the best intentions, but I don't appreciate) that I can't even think about having the energy to write something worthwhile here.

Past due...

It's past time for me to write again, but I just can't bring myself to do it yet... At least write something with meaning. Maybe it's depression, PTSD, exhaustion, a spiritual trial, or something else..who knows. All I know is it won't be today and that's okay. Some days I can force myself to open up, but this is not one of those moments. And the best part of this is that unlike with family or friends, here I don't have to pretend or be fake.
I do find it interesting that while typing this into my phone, I have misspelled words twice. Once it automatically changed to the word Shia (which is a sect of Islam that composes the majority in Iraq), and the next time it switched to ops..as in an abbreviation for operations. Those words have been quite intertwined in my life in the past..but that's a different world for a different day.

Pivot Point

As a student in a marketing course, we often talk about start up companies hitting a pivot point. A moment in time where they decide that in order to be profitable and continue with their idea, they are going to have to transform their way of thinking and their product into something slightly different from their original intentions. It almost always requires an uncomfortable shift, but a very necessary one.
I hit this point spiritually three years ago. I was in the military dealing with situations where I would see death everyday, everyone around me was partying all the time, and I was trying to live a conservative Christian life. These things combined drove me to frustration. I didn't fully understand what that meant (not that I do now either, but the journey has began). I did know that it meant I had very few friends or I made appearances at parties without getting involved and left fairly quickly, but it went farther than the outward appearances of a Christian life. My heart was confused. I felt numb. I had turned off my emotions in order to deal with the continual death and never really turned them back on, yet I knew that there was more to following Jesus than the life that I was living. When I read the Bible I saw men and women excited about serving Christ and giving up everything to follow, but I just felt condemnation over my imperfection. By the grace of God, I was put in contact with some people who became wonderful mentors to me, that assisted in creating the pivot point in my life.
One day I was sitting at their dinner table talking about chapter seven of Romans. I saw Paul's struggle, yet had grown up in a fairly legalistic church that preached that if you "sin" in any respect, you are no longer "a Christian". I couldn't reconcile Paul's writings and although I felt frustration over my inadequacies, I felt relief that I was not in this struggle alone. As I read:

  For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

My spirit completely understood what he was saying. I felt this turmoil within me. I had the desire to do what was right, but the weakness of the flesh held me back. (Sidenote: by all outward appearances, I was living the life that avoided "sin". I didn't sleep around, get drunk, or steal or lie, but I did have pride, am selfish, and don't show the fruit of the Spirit as strongly as I should, or give to the poor as often as I should. I followed some of what the Bible commanded, but not all.) I felt conviction to be closer to the Lord, yet I was in bondage to the law.
My mentors gave me two key points that encouraged the pivot in my life. They recommended I continue to read into chapter 8. Yes, we need to recognize this struggle, but there is hope! Chapter eight follows this description of the battle between the flesh and the spirit by saying:

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

I wasn't bound to legalism of the law! I was free by the blood of Jesus and there was no condemnation. Just acknowledging this made a impact on my entire way of thinking.
The second piece of advice they gave me was "Don't try to live perfect, try to live righteous."  The freedom I felt in this statement was unbelievable. No, I wasn't immediately perfect, but I wasn't required to perfect! This was not an excuse to engage in sin, but it was the freedom to enjoy the liberation from sin. Galatians 5 makes this very clear:

It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery... For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

I had been so caught up in avoiding sin, that I had only felt the law, not the freedom from the law. My perspective shifted in that moment. My life-changing pivot occurred and the journey of love began. 

Where this great journey begins- Love

I have the privilege to be working through a Bible study that focuses on the life of Christ. I just finished a life changing study on Paul, so starting one on Christ seemed like a natural step. What I couldn't have planned on was the amazing way that I started this study heading into the Christmas season, meaning I began with the birth of John and then the birth of Jesus... I grew up hearing these stories all the time. Every Christmas morning, my father reads Luke 2 and my family fills in the words he leaves out. We all know this historical account very well, so I expected this study to produce the same results. This was a fail on my part. The Lord never ceases to open my eyes to new truths and show his love in new ways, and that was exactly what occurred in the first days of my study. I made it as far as Luke 2:22 until I could not help, but pause in the wonder of the love of Christ.
This account details the days immediately following Jesus' birth, explaining that after eight days he was circumcised and named Jesus as the angel had proclaimed (Luke 2:21). Then according to Leviticus 12:1-8, Mary needed to continue the purification set forth in the law for another 33 days. So finally, 41 days after the birth of Christ, he is brought to the temple to be presented to the Lord (Luke 2:22). Luke then briefly explains the law, but we get more details if we refer back to Exodus 13 and Numbers 18. Basically in these passages, the Lord requires that the first-born male be set apart and offered back to the Lord, but then for the price of 5 shekels, the parents may "redeem" their son. (According to the sources I found, this act of buying their child back from the Lord is still a custom among many Jews that continues today.) So based on the combination of Luke's account and the Levitical law, we get this amazing picture of the infant Christ being brought to the temple to be offered back to His Father. I'm not a parent, so I may not fully understand the agony of this situation, but here's how I see it: Mary and Joseph are just following the practice that they have been taught, but imagine God the Father. His tiny infant son is offered back to him. The Father knows the plan set before Jesus. The pain and suffering of the cross that will end Jesus' life on earth. Yet even in this moment, when His son is offered back to Him, He doesn't take him back and say that this plan isn't worth the pain. No, instead he allows Mary and Joseph to redeem the Messiah.
I can't even imagine the heartbreak of God, knowing that He is giving his son, his firstborn son, to a sinful broken world that would crucify him, so that Jesus might redeem us. What unreal love! That while we were at our darkest in sin, not even seeing our need for a Savior, God is willing to offer his son to pay the price for us.
The awe and wonder of this passage has become fresh again as I consider the sacrifice in a new light. How can I do anything, but stand in amazement and gratefulness to a Savior who paid the ultimate price for me. I pray that I never lose this broken worship in understanding the depth of my sin, yet the even greater depth of His love.

"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:6-8 (NASB)

The beginning...

The main purpose of this blog is to document my journey of learning to follow Jesus Christ. That said, I may post some stories about what has occurred in the past so that I don't forget the life lessons that have helped mold me into who I am today. I may be considered a little bit crazy at times, but I am okay with that if it will draw me closer to Christ. This process should not be about finding myself. Instead it should be focused on the overwhelming love of Christ that can change lives and the work of the Holy Spirit in an individual who desires to follow the call of Jesus to follow at any cost.
I have no doubt that as difficult as this journey may be, it will be worth it.