So…I had a dream last night. It was kinda strange, but I woke up wondering what it meant.
Part of it was someone looking at me and urging me to “be the scientist” I was meant to be.
There was a bit about trying to tune a radio to find a station but it never would come in.
Then we were walking through the forest, up a hill. Someone was asking me if I was a Prophet or an Apostle. I started explaining how I might be a little one or the other, but I wasn’t sure.
There was another bit where a friend and I went into a little child’s playhouse and sat in this balcony overlooking a yard, almost like a hidden tree house thing. She started doing this little dot-dash pattern on a writing tablet or book as if she was trying to help me figure out what my gifts or calling were.
Like I said, weird.
But, then it got weirder. This morning on the train I’m reading the next chapter of this book, “The Cure”, by John Lynch, and I come across this part:
“Some of the most disingenuous and useless relationships are those where one has an agenda in another’s life, seeing ourselves as SCIENTISTS seeking a solution for disease in a twisted lab experiment. These people assume some equation of holiness: Four hours of small group study plus thirty minutes memorizing scriptures, multiplied by challenge, conviction and demand make the subject sin less and become a more productive church member.”
How did I dream about something I hadn’t read yet?
But honestly the whole chapter started to make me wonder if what I’ve been trying to do is to come up with some agenda where I can “fix” people. And maybe all I really need to do is to just help people understand that they are loved? That they can really open themselves up to be loved by us and by God and by others?
Later on this same chapter it says:
“The spiritually immature are not loved well, but it is not because they fail. They are not loved well because they fail to trust the love of another. Because they trust no one, their needs aren’t met. Because their needs aren’t met, they live out of selfishness. Not only do they not receive love, they don’t give it either.”
I wonder if this is really our core issue? Do we fail to respond to God’s love because we don’t really trust that we are lovable?
Do we keep ourselves walled off from others because we don’t trust that we will be loved if people really knew all about us?
Do we shut ourselves off from God, and from others, because in our heart of hearts we’re just not convinced we are worth loving, or that if others knew us deeply that we would still be deeply loved?
Maybe so.
And if so, then maybe the cure is to start learning how to really receive God’s love. As it says in 1 John: “We love because He first loved us.” Not simply chronologically. It’s like a catalyst: We only know how to love because we have first received His love that transcends knowledge.
Once we really begin to believe that we are loved, and that His love won’t stop or change or go away if we screw up, then we begin to be changed by His love. It starts to transform us from within. We relax. We discover the freedom to be who we really are. We suddenly realize our masks are obsolete. We drop them on the ground, or absently forget them under the chair, as we start to laugh, and sing, and dance and enjoy being loved!
We finally start to believe it – really, really BELIEVE – that WE ARE LOVED!
Once we fully accept and trust that we are loved by God – forever, without fluctuation or conditions – then we experience the glorious freedom of being His Beloved in the here and now.
That’s when we have the best hope of helping others to break free of their chains and begin to believe that they, too, are loved beyond measure.
It’s a process, but we’re all made to be loved, and to love others, so the more we begin to move in this direction and to trust our Abba, the easier it all becomes to us. Soon, what sounds strange to our ears is the idea that we’re unworthy, or broken, or sinful, or that we’re full of darkness. Our hearts refuse to hear it. Our heads shake back and forth as our lips whisper: “Not anymore we’re not!”
We reach a point where we fully accept our identity as “the one the Lord loves” and our lives become re-calibrated to a new rhythm and pattern of being: We are the children of God. We are the one’s He loves. We are being transformed daily into His image. Christ is alive in us and He will never, ever leave.
Halleluiah!
So, I’m giving up on trying to be a “Scientist” who wants to “fix people”. My calling is to be one who proclaims the Good News that they are dearly loved of God and that if they put their hope in Jesus, He will show them how to be loved by God and how to love others out of that glorious relationship.
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Keith Giles was formerly a licensed and ordained minister who walked away from organized church 11 years ago, to start a home fellowship that gave away 100% of the offering to the poor in the community. Today, He and his wife live in Meridian, Idaho, awaiting their next adventure.
His new book “Jesus Unbound: Liberating the Word of God from the Bible”, is available now on Amazon and features a Foreword by author Brian Zahnd.
He is also the author of the Amazon best-seller, “Jesus Untangled: Crucifying Our Politics To Pledge Allegiance To The Lamb” with a Foreword by Greg Boyd.
Keith also co-hosts the Heretic Happy Hour Podcast on iTunes and Podbean.
BONUS: Want to unlock exclusive content including blog articles, short stories, music, podcasts, videos and more? Visit my Patreon page.
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