Hope Without Limits

I had a dream last night about a flood.   Sounds scary right?  I thought so too until I started to record it and the revelation came.  It was actually pretty amazing.

In the dream there are torrential rains.  I am in an Explorer with a man driving, the water is up past the bumper of the vehicle and the current is roaring around us; yet the man driving doesn’t seem the least concerned and seems to be able to navigate with ease. We get to this building with people I know inside and it is chaotic with everyone trying to get their stuff together and get out, yet in the midst of this chaos people are trying to bathe, it seems very important to everyone.  Someone I know makes way for me to have a chance to bathe, but when I get to the tub someone else is already there, and I have to stand up for myself to have my turn.  The scene changes again and I am sweeping out a garage because I know I am going to have to leave a little dog behind and it is breaking my heart.  Will he survive?  How long will he survive?  Is there water here for him? It is so dark and stormy outside the garage door.  The scene changes again and I have the little dog by the collar leading him to a big bus.  I am wondering how am I walking out here? Where is the water?  But, I know the flood is close and coming.  I want everyone in the bus to see the little dog that we have to leave behind.  I just don’t know if I can leave him.  I wake up.

As I record the dream revelation comes that Jesus is the driver of the “Explorer”.  Jesus will help me to navigate the flood of the Father’s presence.  All the washing is imagery for how each of us must guard our own hearts even in the midst of chaos, including me, for out of our hearts flow the springs of life (Prov 4:23).  In the dream I was safe in the midst of the storm when I was taking care of that little dog = someone’s heart (for years my Heavenly Father has spoken to me about hearts through the imagery of dogs and how unconditionally they love).  There may be some scary places to be/to walk through/to look at to attend to people’s hearts, but My Heavenly Father doesn’t want to leave them in those scary places even more than I don’t want to leave them there. He will keep me and them safe.

I was trying to soak in this revelation while driving to work and the passage from Matthew 7:24-27 came to mind about the house built on a rock and the storm coming against it.  Suddenly the light went on — the biggest storm to test our foundation is not adversity, it is the Creator of All flooding us with all of His fullness that is beyond anything we can even dare to dream (Eph 3:19-20).

What am I talking about?

God, when you went out at the head of your people,
when you marched out through the wilderness,
the earth quaked, and rain poured from the sky,
at the presence of God.
Even Sinai [shook] at the presence of God,
the God of Isra’el.
Psalm 68:8-9

When God doesn’t fit in your box that feels safe and you can understand but rather shows up in all His fullness like described in the passage above – unless our foundation is Jesus, Himself, it will crumble like sand.   Rhetoric, ritual, the things that we can understand and be comfortable with will not stand because He is so much MORE.   It’s gonna be a flood but that’s OK because we have the One who can navigate the flood.  Jesus experienced all the fullness of God in bodily form when he walked this earth (Col 2:9). Look how amazing His life was.  It did not matter to Jesus that there was 5,000 people to feed; it didn’t matter if he didn’t have a place to lay his head; it didn’t matter if he was at a wedding that ran out of wine – he thrived because the fullness of God was in Him.  When God comes in that kind of fullness in our lives, it is going to shake things up; it is going to change things; it will shake you to your very foundations and if those foundations are sand, they will crumble because they won’t be able withstand the weight of His presence.

Remember at one point in the dream, I had to stand up for myself even though someone else had tried to make a place for me? Why was that? Because at the end of the it all, even though we can help and comfort one another along the way, it truly is every person for themselves.  Yes, I really did just say that.   What did I mean?  Each of us must be responsible for our own heart.  As much as others may want to help you, you have to make the choices of whether or not you are willing to look at those places in your heart that seem a little scary … or maybe a lot scary.  Those places that seem so raw, that you would rather just cover them up and hope that no air gets to them so that they won’t hurt any more.  But, I think we all know what happens when we do that, they just fester.  

So it is your choice.  Are you willing to let God out of the box where you are comfortable with what He does and how He acts in your life?  Are you willing to let Him come in and flood your spirit, your soul, your body, your world knowing that He will help you navigate through whatever the two of you need to explore and discover.  If you are, there is freedom, there is hope and there is healing.  He doesn’t come in like a flood to destroy, but rather to fill your mortal body with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead (Rom 8:11)  Now, is that such a bad thing?

Because to give you the bottom line …. there is not one heart God wants left behind.  He wants to go after every heart no matter what scary place they are in.  He sees every one of them.  He wants to make a safe place for your heart, my heart and every heart to thrive.