A Word from the LORD....

July 8-9, 2007

I had a dream while I was sleeping the night of July 8, 2007 [technically it was the 9^th because I woke up at four in the morning to the end of it]. I've wondered before what it felt like to have a dream from God; I figured it'd just be one of those things you knew when you got it. And that's the case. I've had weird dreams my brain has conjured up, mixing chemicals and memories. I've had a dream from the enemy, which really scared the hell right into me. And now I've had a dream from God. I'm not bragging. But it's been a month now and I've only told a handful of people because I felt like if I told anyone other than pastors and close friends in the faith, I'd be bragging that Jesus shared a dream with ME, not you. But that's not important, and I know that, and I'm not bragging. I want to make that clear. In fact, I feel I've been wrong to guard it. It wasn't a word for me. It was for everybody. And with that, here is the dream:

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I was with the OakLeaf Christian Fellowship youth group, at a hotel/nursing home…in reality, we had just returned from a trip going to Student Life and ending it with The Call in Nashville on 7-7-07. The next night God gave me this dream, as I said at a hotel/nursing home. It was the environment of Student Life but the purpose of The Call, that young people had intentionally gathered in the old folks' territory for intercessory prayer. Rebekah or Taylor, of the youth group, had told me that there were also homeless people there, that the hotel staff [or staff of wherever we were] didn't mind. I'm thinking of this as I am getting myself some food, but Will and Ian [of the youth group] came to get me so I grabbed some bread to take back with me. I grabbed bread and butter for my bread, I may have forgotten it at first, but as I walked by the table I noticed that all of the bread broke into two halves, the regular consistency of bread but a clean cut in the break each time, the same way. I thought to myself how it reminded me of the body of Christ, the bread being broken as communion bread, and decided against the butter on the bread and put it back down on the table. In doing so I noticed a homeless man with short dark hair and shabby dark clothing sitting in a chair facing the dining room to the left of the step down to the platform before the stairwell. I thought to myself how maybe he was waiting for us "normal folk" to finish before he'd see if there were leftovers to eat off the table. But on the table there was just bread…the body of Christ. As polite as he was trying to be, I didn't think it was necessary.

I stepped down to the platform before the stairs with the boys and surveyed the room below. Immediately I got a sense that something terrible has happened, and evil has moved in. All along the perimeter of the room was furniture, on which were afflicted peoples. They were no small afflictions. All were possessed or falling prey in some undisclosed way to the enemy; all of the people sitting around the walls of the room were in his clutch. There was nobody that I particularly saw in the room necessarily; all were sitting up against the wall. The only person in this state that caught my eye specifically was a homeless man with a dark-haired woman kneeling in front of him and laying hands on him, praying for him. One of the girls in the youth group, it may or may not have been the same one from before, came to meet us at the top of the stairs to tell me "it's because we stopped refuging." There was no exchange. That's all that was said. In my dream I wondered if "refuging" was a real word, though I figured it meant to give refuge to. Dictionary.com confirmed this once I woke up.

I began to hear wicked, incoherent speech to my left. The voice then said "our names are Sugar and Haziel* [or "Heziel," I'm not sure right now]." I was reminded instantly of the Scriptures when the demons say "our names are Legion, for we are many" and Jesus cast them out into the pigs. This terrified me because it seemed to give authority to the voice. I turned to look, and it was an older woman with short, dark gray hair and a blank stare on her face. Her mouth was gaping open. I hear moaning behind me so as I turn my neck to look behind me, I also hear chocking and gurgling. The moaning is from an old man standing directly behind me, dressed in all white, with high creased pants and a button-up collar shirt tucked in. I realize as I look into his distorted face that the choking and gurgling is me, though there is nothing visibly choking me. My face and throat are frozen stiff and I cannot be saved from where I am—or it feels that way, with the presence of the enemy so thick. I consciously say "Jesus" and instantly wake up. My cheeks were burning and my face was flushed, but my body relaxed as I continued to pray.

From what I understand at this point, the church has obviously failed in being a safe-haven in the way that Jesus' arms are open to everyone, such as the homeless. As for the man waiting to eat, he shouldn't feel so different and marginalized that he has to wait to eat the crumbs off of the richer folks' table, even in the environment he was in. The Church, the Body of Christ, isn't offering itself to feed the hungry, though it looks clean on the outside. The old man dressed in white behind me was from the place we had gathered. As good as things look, our lack of action has given the enemy room for his own movement and the more this generation steps in to counteract, the more we'll see we've done wrong that needs to change.

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There are a number of things I could say, because in many ways I hate the Church. Rather, I hate what the Church is doing and has done, which is probably the more righteous attitude to have. I once heard a man say that the Church may be a whore, but it's the whore Jesus died for. That's very true. I may be a whore, but I'm the whore Jesus died for. You don't have to sleep around to commit a betrayal of intimacy.

The Church is not gated. The Church is not an institution. The Church is not a building with pretty windows. The Church is not tradition. In fact, the only traditions I feel have a place in the Church are communion and baptism.

If you've ever run into those "crazy Christian folk" I hear about so much and run into now and then—you know who I'm talking about, the ones who judge you for having piercings, tattoos, or a different worldview—I'm terribly sorry, from the very bottom of me. Really I am. That's not Jesus. But this is a spiel for another day.

The Church is a body of people, a collection of very good friends. The Church is the light in the dark. So it's particularly a bad thing when we seem closed off with a "no sinners allowed" sign on the door. It's just unhealthy in every respect. I'm sorry. Jesus probably isn't who you think He is, even if you think you know Him pretty well. He is LORD, Savior, Son of God, my only hope, lover of my soul. Everyone knows or has heard John 3:16 at least once, that God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son so that anyone—anyone—who believed in Him wouldn't know what it meant to be defeated by death, but instead how it feels to conquer it. Jesus Christ conquered death for you. For me.

No one follows it often with the next verse, verse seventeen, but it might just be my favorite. These are the words of Jesus, mind you:

"God didn't go to all the trouble of sending His Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again."

This is the message the Church needs to convey, to be a refuge for people. For everyone, regardless of their image or worldview. We can't shut the Bible, nor can we write it our own way. God has spoken. These are His words. Love. Love. Love. Love. Because He loves me, because He loves this whore so much, He'll change us. He'll make us more like Him, and less corrupt. Less full of hatred. Less conquered by death. May it be so.

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*The whole name thing here is under a little bit of dispute because I don't know how it would be spelled, and therefore what it would mean. I thought when I woke up that it was "Haziel" or "Heziel," and in researching them I have been led to "Hazael," which I am thinking suffices just fine. It means "God sees" in Hebrew, and was the name of a king of Aram during the time of the prophet Elijah. You can read a little bit about him in 1 Kings 19 and 2 Kings 8. He wasn't good. He said he was, but he wasn't. And as we know, actions speak louder than words. In this case, those are the words for the Church right now. We are a white-washed tomb.

I think that's what God was saying to us in the dream. I am human, I can hear wrong for sure, but I am totally at peace delivering this message, which I think is a good sign [John 14:27]. SO. Mull on that one.

The Rebel Generation and the Perfect Kingdom

Let's play that association game where I say something and you think fast and respond the first word that comes to your head. Game? Game. Go.

Peanut Butter.

Jelly.

Winnie.

Pooh.

Gotham City.

Batman.

Van Gogh.

Paint.

Guitar.

Music.

The-same-stupid-commercial-filmed-a-thousand-different-ways.

Corona.

America.

Freedom.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Indeed. Here we are, the United States, proclaiming freedom into all the world. "Come into our land and prosper." This is no commentary on what you may think of our current politics, economy or immigration policies. This is just our ideal. Freedom. The American Dream. I wonder, though.

Our Constitution created within itself the option to improve, change and alter the rules. I suppose we've interpreted this as ultimate freedom, superior to the rest of the world. Even Darius, the Mede-Persian king who overthrew the mighty Babylonian Empire tangled himself up at least once because he made a bad law and even as king was unable to change it. A dear friend of his nearly died as a consequence. I feel like giving ourselves leniency to change our rules leads to some sort of legal relativism, which permeates our morality as much as it reflects it. But obviously if you have a bad law that you cannot change and discover its nature only when confronted with its consequence, then you're screwed. Maybe your friend comes face-to-face with a lion or two because of your ill-advised logic as a political leader. So it seems to be that we are damned if we do, damned if we don't. Is it possible to have flawless laws in a world that changes with every sunrise?

If it were, we'd have to wonder what that would look like. It would be a kingdom, with an absolute ruler, because if he were to be flawless then there would be no need to impeach, replace, or assassinate. He would speak truth, because if he were a liar then we wouldn't want him in charge of a flawless kingdom. There's no room for falsehood in this place. His subjects would love him, because he would do only good things for them because he loved them as well, perhaps even before they loved him. He was probably the first one on the scene for that to work out. I would venture so far as to say that this kingdom would therefore be ruled by this love. Consequently, people would be inspired to obey the laws because they would respect the kingdom intrinsically. [Remember, this kingdom has flawless laws that never need to go under the Congressional knife]. Any violations of the law would go against the character of the kingdom, its king, and to that degree its subjects as well. It would be a threat. Perhaps even a betrayal.

If we're going to go so far as to speculate that there could exist perfect laws, we might as well go out on a limb and guess what they would be. Personally, I would think that they'd address relational respect, even love, to guide the actions and relationships amongst the people. The king would have to be a flawless example of these laws just because he's the leader. He can't get away with screwing up. The people could though, because if they were perfect too then we wouldn't need the laws at all. But we do have laws, so I'm guessing that the people are screwed up a little bit. But they like these laws so they try their best to honor them. That's what it is, anyway; a matter of honor. By abiding in it, people would defend this honor from things not of their kingdom, their home. While we're at it, let's say too, that because the king is perfect and good, he is very generous and though he's not going anywhere anytime soon, he wants to let some subjects inherit the kingdom. It would still be his, mind you, but they'd get to share in it on a deeper level just because this good king would have to like to share.

Now, the king would probably present this proposition at some point to all of the people in his rather large kingdom, so they would all know what was up. It's only fair. That might take longer than a day or two, because there are a lot of people, so he'd have to send messengers from the central area to the far reaches of the kingdom so all the distant folk heard the word as well. I imagine he would tell them that immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissentions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing and things like these would violate this perfect relational law he's created because it hurts other people's feelings, and his as well just because it's mean and wrong. But things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control would form the right kind of attitude to pursue this good law and share in the kingdom on a deep level. The king would be very proud of you, I'm sure, since he'd be a good king. Good kings have pride in good people. It would be a very good kingdom. If only.

I don't think that good exists because bad exists, or that right exists because wrong exists, but I do think that we've labeled good "good" and right "right" because we've been presented with an alternative. We've seen "bad," and we've done "wrong." [Go ahead, you can admit it to yourself]. So we've contrasted white with black and dark with light so we can wrap our heads around what we're dealing with in life. But my black probably isn't your black because we don't live in the kingdom I just talked about. We live in America, Land of the Free Thinkers. Land of Relativism. There is no place on earth you could get away with more, I'm sure of it. Even more than in Amsterdam. No one in Amsterdam has completely revolutionized the theories of the entire developed world. Tell me if I'm wrong. But we have the power to do that in America. So we put this thinking and speaking freedom to use and talk and discuss and challenge. And rebel. It's in our nature. It's why even in my good kingdom, there are laws. There would be a right and wrong. Now, in a perfect kingdom we wouldn't have to worry about it but I would imagine that any good king could eventually figure out a way to perfect his people so they didn't run around killing each other with words or stones all the time, if at all.

Do you think it would be okay to say that maybe we are so delighted in thinking all over the place that that is why we can change our laws? Because this isn't my good kingdom, so we'd probably have a few wrinkles to iron out as we went along. Do you think that we would be able to get the whole population to agree on even just one principle to found our laws on? Just one. We'll use the example of my good kingdom earlier, which was founded on love. Can we all agree on love? Probably, but then we'd argue over what love really is. Pure, true love; not just any love. My pure and true love could very well be the next person's lust. I think the love we would found our laws on would have to present itself to us somehow, which demands that this love would be bigger than us, bigger than America, bigger than our borders, bigger than our oceans, bigger than our world, bigger than our galaxies, bigger than our universe. It would have to be the center of it all, otherwise it would fall apart. If the foundation of a flawless kingdom can't measure up to a star, which blows up with time, or a galaxy, which could slowly fall victim to a black hole…then it probably isn't worth our time. I know it wouldn't be worth mine. Let me propose the characteristics of this love of which I speak, and you tell me if you think I'm hot or cold about the whole thing: what if it were patient? kind? not jealous? not boastful? not arrogant? appropriately flattering? selfless? What if this love didn't keep a record of any wrongdoing, but with its patience it taught us its ways because this love hates evil and rejoices in truth? [Remember, there's no room for falsehood]. What if this love would bear my burdens for me? Believed in me for all of the best things love could offer? What if this love hoped all things, endured all things [even rebellion, even betrayal]? What if?

The world would be beautiful for it. You and I, we'd be beautiful. We probably wouldn't even understand it. There is faith; there is hope; there is love. The greatest of these is love. Love would conquer rebellion against it, as it endures all things. Love would pursue, even through the deepest betrayal, because it endures all things, hopes for all things. Love is the action that defends honor and preserves the perfect Kingdom, the embodiment of its King.