Part of a dream I had Tuesday morning, 4/08/11.
I sit down up against a wall on the side of a church auditorium. The church program is beginning. The girl I sat beside leans over and says, "You shouldn't be here. They have stopped letting people sit down because there is no room. The people have to wait outside." I was taken aback by the girl's rudeness and didn't know how to respond. God then walked up and sat in an empty chair right in between the girl's view of the front of the room. He turned and firmly said to her, "Leave her alone. If she is a problem I will ask her to leave before the service starts." He said this in a way that was clearly saying, "Jenny is not anyone's concern but mine." The girl was silent, but she did cross her legs Indian style and rest her knee on my leg. I didn't know why she did this since she didn't know me, and thought it was rude. I fumed silently.
Even though God had stood up for me, I was confused by his behavior. He was a very tall man with a long torso, and by sitting where he did he was blocking the girl's view, as well as those behind him, of the church program. I thought that he may not realize this and reached my hand over to nudge his knee. "Hey. You probably shouldn't sit here because you're blocking the front and people can't see around you." I could tell that what I said had annoyed God for he furrowed his brow and he sat up even taller, to his full height, crossing his arms in front of his chest. I did not understand this and thought that he was being rude, but I knew that God was not rude. I still thought he should sit in the back of the room. The girl beside me was trying to look around him, but didn't want to be so obvious that God would notice she was trying to see the front. I looked towards the front and started watching the program.
When I woke up and thought about the dream I did not like how the girl and I were so rude to each other. Even though the girl was rude to me first, my body language afterwards was quite passive. I also did not understand God's behavior and why he seemed to not care he was in the way. I asked God what it meant and all he said was, "The dream was you talking to me about how you felt."
I told my mom the dream shortly after I woke up, and it was then that I began to understand. As I told her that God had been so big he was blocking the view of the program I realized the point. GOD was sitting right beside the girl and I, yet we were still wanting to watch the church program. Instead of realizing that if the point of going to church at all was to focus on God, we had our focus on "the program". We were completely missing that God was in the midst of us, but instead telling him, or thinking, that he was in the way and should move to the back.
I also feel that how the girl and I interacted with each other was another picture of the church today. If we were part of the same body why weren't we nice to each other? Why did we only see each other as in the way and only concerned for our personal space?
If we are the body and the bride why don't we look like one? Why don't we treat each other like we belong together?
I know that when God me, "The dream was you talking to me about how you felt", he was letting me know that he was listening to me and heard me. I didn't like everything I was saying, because I realized that I treat myself like I was treating God. I walk into a lot of rooms and feel like what God is saying to me will only burst the bubbles of those around me, and I am inclined to keep my mouth shut so everyone can keep on making their own agendas fit their idea of God. I feel like I am in the way of what people are trying to do, "the program", and decide that it would be rude of me to not just pay attention and that I would only be judging them. I then sit nicely on the side or in the back, and even then I am sometimes told I am still in the way.
But why am I concerned about these things? After having this dream I realize that accepting the discernment God gives me about what is going on is not the same as passing judgments. It's accepting a truth for what it is. It's letting God share his pain in what is going on and that he is being ignored by the church. It's painful and it's hard, but I'm realizing more and more that I would much rather know and have the amazing opportunity to grow in intimacy with the Lord by sharing in the pain of his heart than be blind to it.
"When you come to appear before Me, who requires of you this trampling of courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer, incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies - I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, they have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them." Isaiah 1:12-14
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