A couple of weeks ago I shared a post about following the Lord in the new places, All I Want. It can be scary. I wholeheartedly believe that as disciples we are lifelong learners and can always go further with the Lord. As I mentioned in that post, my concern or my constant question before the Lord has been Am I missing you? Am I hearing right? Last night I had a dream that I believe speaks to the question.
In the dream I had been deep water diving with a group of people. Afterwards, we cleaned up and met in a type of gathering room. Everyone was swapping stories from the dive. I felt like there was dirt or gunk draining from my left ear and wondered if it was from diving. I was too excited to stop and clean it, and I knew no one in the group would care. A friend of mine who was an experienced deep water diver came and offered me some Q-tips. She graciously, evenly joyfully, confirmed there was dirt in my ear and that it is was a normal result from going so deep.
As I’ve thought and prayed about the dream, I couldn’t help but feel childlike joy in regards to deep water diving with God … or in God … or in the Kingdom … you get the idea. Here are two the main ideas that stick out to me about the dream.
Dive with Friends
If you find yourself wanting to go deeper with God, tell someone. There was something safe and joyful about diving with a group of people in the dream. We are more likely to go further if others are around to encourage us. Or, even better, go with us. Also, it was exciting to swap dive stories. It’s easy to get stuck in our own experiences and circumstances. We will see more when we dive with others. Last thing, there are benefits to diving with experienced people. They already know that dirt drainage is going to happen because they’ve been there before. They won’t judge us. They can also give you the tools to clean out the gunk.
Gunk is Normal
I’ve never been scuba diving. I don’t know if actual drainage occurs, but I do know that pressure affects our ears and hearing. In the dream the deeper we went the more gunk drained out. I am beginning to understand that it is normal for spiritual drainage to occur as we follow the Lord. It may mess with our hearing momentarily, but cleaning it out will eventually increase our confidence in hearing the Lord. Our biases, preferences, and sins have to be expressed out of our spiritual ears. The wisdom of the world has to be removed from our hearing in order for us to hear and trust the Lord better.
So, it’s hard not to think about Jonah with this dream. He resisted the word of the Lord when it came to him. It wasn’t until he was in the deep parts of a fish, in the deep parts of water that his perspective shifted. Even though he didn’t fully understand God’s purpose, he listened and obeyed the second time the word of God came to him.
I hope this encourages you today. I love how kind and attentive the Lord is with my concerns about following him in new ways. He never lets us go. Happy deep water diving!
Next Week: resuming the Written on Our Hearts series with “Mary, the Mother of Jesus”
Brave Sparrow 