Dreams

Are you a vivid dreamer? My lovely wife maintains that she doesn’t dream or at least doesn’t recall any of her dreams. I’m fascinated by that, because my dreams are often so real that I awake sometimes worn out by their activity or upset by their events and occasionally enlightened by their instruction. Now, I’m not bold enough or foolish enough to make some kind of Joseph claims that touts divine given insight or heavenly revelation but I must say that occasionally I feel a God nudge. Let me quickly allay any fears you may have… I’m fully aware of how many times that my dreams are a garbled mess and make no earthly much less heavenly sense (Pam once woke me up because I was laughing at a “dream” joke and when I tried to tell the joke –well, suffice to say, “Not funny!”). So, what I’m saying is that my meager understanding of dreams is that it is a function of the subconscious that affords our imaginations an opportunity to help us vent frustration, attempt to resolve issues and take outlandish vacations from reality. But as the conscious is led by the Spirit of God… I assume so is the subconscious. Thus, occasionally a dream or two has helped or enlightened me spiritually.

Such was a snippet from a recent dream where a friend from the past told me in conversation that he was trying to put into practice the memo from upstairs to observe, conserve and then reserve. This odd triad kept ringing in my dream ears and I kept rehearsing them over and over until I carried the following insight into the waking hours: 1) Life is learned more by observation than any other learning process. As a kindergarten teacher, Pam often had five or more different language speakers in her class but this tower of Babel obstacle was easily overcome because most of her teaching was done by modeling. We learn much by observation. What I began to observe about this triad was that what the three words had in common was the root “serve.” The greatest observation in life is that I’m called to serve; 2) that observation is only effective if I am quickly reminded that to serve I must conserve. No, not go green but the literal sense of the word… to serve with. That is, to serve I must always be aware that I am in partnership with God and the apostle Paul adds, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose (Philippians 2:13);” 3) to top this all off one must never forget that in serving God and his fellow man that all service is just a service already received from God. We reserve (re-serve) the blessings that God has given so freely to us!

Okay… I know at this point you’re thinking… This is no dream insight but the hyper imaginative powers of a preacher in search of a sermon! Maybe, you’re right –or maybe God sometimes gives us a nudge! -DAN