A calling to write what He leads, no matter how uncomfortable...
Because simple daily Christian living is never what we thought it would be
And, My Dishes Said Nothing!
I dreamt of Christ today…
Wide awake and in the middle of the day…
While chasing cats and doing dishes.
And, He told me again that I am truly His.
And then with that assurance He said…
Even you,
A true Believer of Me,
Have become intolerant of the lost,
And…too tolerant of the saved.
And, My Dishes Said Nothing!
Have you ever day-dreamt segments of your life? So many times I find myself remembering parts of my past life and envisioning things that have never yet taken place. I am not dual personality. I do not believe in reincarnation. I guess I am just a very visual learner…and God accommodates my growing spiritual maturity by showing me pictures. Now don’t get all tied up in a fit of knots. Don’t think of what I am describing as prophetic visions, think of them as visual aids with meaning. Which of you cannot admit, that during the course of mundane activity…like laundry, dishes, or cleaning the garage, you do not think in pictures? And, from those projected film frames, that you have not gained some clarity on previously allusive understanding? See…visual aids with meaning. Come to reassess that, many of them, for me, have not dictated meaning. So, just think of them as well…daydreaming with possible insight.
However, today’s daydreaming lead to an absolute understanding. For years I have been irritated with the church; sometimes even the greater Church. To clarify the difference for you, my opinion is that the church is the local house of believers, potential believers, dragged here not-yet-close believers, and hard-core not-ever-going-to-give-an-inch love-myself-way-too-much not-believers. But, who cares, the church is a great place for all of them to be…so unless they are false teachers or demon-spreaders…the bigger the party, the better. The greater Church on the other hand is defined by God. They are called apart, sanctification-pursuing, absolutely committed, leave-the-dead-bury-the-dead Christ followers. And I have felt guilty for being frustrated with both; until now.
Today I was minding my own business…which is the “runnings” of my household and attempting to “catch-up” from a week of volunteering at our local school. (Why I ever say yes to these volunteer things I will never understand.) When, once really deep into a daydream, I realized I was daydreaming again. Do not think that I was sleeping, because I was actually chasing our cats from one door to the next, trying to herd them to the outside. They were annoying me with their constant attack-the-other-cat type wrestling. Half way into the next chore, I realized that the daydream had rewound and was playing itself over again in my mind. How strange, I thought, a re-run. Hands soapy, I stopped to make sure I didn’t miss it again. I clearly needed to see all the details.
The picture show was an accumulation and rearrangement of many church services and interactions. The characters included people that I currently know and am working with on projects this week, and people whom I know have been dead for years. The leading lady was me. I was playing the part of a very frustrated member of the local church who ran in circles and who was trying to find something to no avail. The leading man was some sort of council. They looked a little like the court of judges from the beginning of the Superman movie which I had recently seen. But mine where not sitting on lofty thrones. They were sort of pushing me around…maybe more like Jake “what’s-his-name” from Dickens’, The Christmas Carol. You know the one who kept forcing Ebenezer Scrooge to look at things. And then the rest of the set, scenery and cast were combinations of familiar faces and places at church.
The daydream became intensely sad for me. There were moments when people rushed past my vision whom I haven’t seen in years; families that my parents used to have over for dinner, friends that I grew up and shared adolescence with, and even visitors whom I remember coming just once or twice a few months ago. I was saddened because I’m not sure where they have gone or why they left. Maybe they all just moved away.
In other moments the daydream was intensely happy for me. I have plenty of great memories from my childhood and teen years of camps and quizzing and Caravans and choir tours. People in the church have helped to plant the spiritual seeds that have made me who I am today. And, I will forever be grateful. Smiles beamed out of me when seeing my great grandmother in her usual pew and my Sunday school teacher with her hankie still waving. Good times, good memories, good people! These characters are truly members of the greater Church.
And still, the leading lady was searching. What was she searching for? And then she was in a board room filled with hundreds of black suits and ties; each row with their heads getting smaller and smaller until she couldn’t even make-out the outlines of their faces in the back row. They had asked her a question. It must have had something to do with a job or an assignment because she responded by saying, “I will take this on for you, but…” And the “but” had three very clear pieces of information. “One”, she said, “I will do this thing according to the standards of HAO”. (His Approval Only: a simple memory reminder I made up years ago for myself to pray first and consider His priorities before ever voting on anything. This was something that I always wrote on my hand as I entered the room where our local school board meetings were held…strange how that and all those old feelings of determination made it into my daydream.) “The programs you have built and the way you organize things now, may not be how the Lord wants me to continue in this project. Be prepared for possible change,” she added.
Then when the mumbling voices of the suits died down, she continued. “Two”, I heard her say in a much more hushed and almost embarrassed tone, “I will want 3000.00 in a signing bonus”. I smiled to the leading lady who winked at me and then I explained to the dishes in front of me that her efforts for the money was cleaver and would most certainly help with our recent financial disaster. The dishes seemed to agree at her wisdom, and I nodded to her in appreciation of her thoughtfulness for us all.
“And Three”, she said with a commanding voice that drew in everyone’s attention, “I most likely will irritate you upon two matters. I tolerate much more than you currently do when considering the population of the lost, and I do not tolerate as much as you currently are tolerating when considering the population of the saved.” And then instantly the panel of pushy-floating judges swept the leading lady away.
And, my dishes said nothing! Of course, they never have. I do listen around though, because I do not want to miss out on what my donkey might be trying to communicate to me from God. So I stood there, with my hands in the suds like a Palmolive commercial. Then,“wha-lah”…clarity entered just as brightly and just as intensely as the sunlight coming in through my kitchen window. The answer I had been searching for to help me understand what is was about churches and God’s people that frustrated me so much. The baseline that would help me answer all my future questions regarding situations as they came up in activities and projects I might be working on. The very foundation I needed to help me discern between the invalid criticisms that my mind makes of others, and satan’s invalid attacks on my overactive quilt when my criticisms are Biblically pure. Clarity…my daydream in vivid color and bright sunlight had brought me pure and usable clarity.
In two simple statements I had heard how I was to evaluate my own frustrations and then either repent of my over criticisms, or move on the power of the Holy Spirit to be the hands and feet of God to help make changes. Two simple statements had separated for me the goals of Christ and the actions of everything else. God had given me a tool that would help me consider myself and others in a way that was more like Him. He didn’t want the confusion and misaligned guilt to weaken or destroy me or what He is planning for my life. So, He produced a dream in the middle of the day…and I stopped to watch.
The theme…we, the believers, are too critical of those who are still lost. We are cold and unwelcoming. We met them at the doors of our churches and at the gates of our lives with judgmental eyes and forced handshakes. We spend too much energy worrying about the way they dress and the smell of smoke in their clothes or alcohol on their breath. We advise them about good health and good food and good hygiene and show them pictures of what they ought to look like. Then we give them a long list of how they ought to behave. We tell them to change their ways so that they can fit in…and then we wonder why they don’t want to. We need to act the way Christ behaved around the lost and love them with unconditional love. And, we need to tolerate everything that Christ tolerated of them.
The theme…we, the believers, are way too lenient with ourselves. We are warm and inviting to those who say they believe in our Lord though the fruits of their lives prove that they have no respect for Him. We excuse each other by renaming sins so that they cannot be recognized in Biblical verse. We promote ourselves according to social standards and forget the rules and laws and expectations of Christ. We exaggerate and “trophitize” our numbers and projects and performances to produce a well written description. But, the lies are revealed as soon as the doors are opened. We tell ourselves that we are okay, that we are doing just fine, that God is proud of our achievements. But, only we are satisfied by our explanations. We need to act the way Christ did around those who call themselves “saved”. We must not tolerate anything that Christ did not tolerate of them.
I dreamt of Christ today…
Wide awake and in the middle of the day…
While chasing cats and doing dishes.
And, He told me again that I am truly His.
And then with that assurance He said…
Even you,
A true Believer of Me,
Have become intolerant of the lost,
And…too tolerant of the saved.
In obedience
Rhonda D Loucks
What can you expect? Straight talk, laughable humor, real truth, simple living, and passionate yearning...
all regarding the God that still involves Himself in the details of the lives of His people