Strange Boat Dream

Strange dream this morning. Got on an old yacht-like boat on a decent sized lake with my family. After pushing out a ways we stopped to begin cleaning it while the kids swam around. Used a strange ladder that was custom built to reach halfway across the deck and attached to the rail to slide along the rail.

Before all that, someone was describing the boat – said the only feature was a house in the middle and a bubble at each end that stuck up above the flat deck. I observed that the square bubble in front was about a king-size bed with a window hatch in the bubble like my sister's old boat. The house in the middle was the pilot house. Later in the dream those both shrank to just round holes in the deck as the whole boat kept getting narrower until by the end it was very narrow, tall and long.

At first, the few times we actually ran the boat it was fast. Sometimes people would be in the water or someone would fall in – like when a skier goes down – and the boat would go in circles. The wave the boat created while trying to stop was sometimes much larger than the boat and would overwhelm the boat and all of us making everyone but me afraid. I would explain to them that this was normal and to just wait until the wave subsided. This happened two or three times.

Then while cleaning the boat as we were drifting around I noticed the wind had pushed us to the side of the lake which was now not much bigger than a pond. I started the engine and went a few yards back toward the middle of the water and shut it off again to clan some more and let the kids swim. It drifted over to a chain-link fence along the right side of the lake and even bumped the fence.

Ziggy was now on board (our daughters unusual cat) and I couldn't keep him from jumping over onto the fence and escaping into the yard past the fence. The area was semi-barren with brown dirt and clay showing and some junk and clutter here and there – maybe some people on the land but I didn't notice much else. Then another black and white cat jumped up on the fence and got onto the boat and I couldn't keep him off.

We then drifted into very shallow, muddy water where it looked like the area was an old dump that was now partially covered with water. There was mud exposed above the water with ashes and pollutants. I wanted to get away from all this and get back into deeper water to protect the boat. I started the boat again and had to rev the engine to plow through the shallows and mud and junk. The engine was like a jet boat that sucks in the water and expels it so I was very uncomfortable having to plow through all this mud an debris. I was worried about the effects on the jet pump and damage to the intake and even the bottom of the boat. But it didn't seem to hurt it a great deal.

By this time the square pond was not much wider than the boat was long. As I steered hard to the left and plowed through shallow spots the front of the boat swung around barely missing the opposite shore. By this time the boat had very surreal proportions – maybe like four to five feet wide, twenty feet high from the keel and fifty feet long. Trying to turn around such a strange shape in such shallow water caused it to finally fall over on its side. My wife was worried about it falling on top of the kids in the water, which it did, but it didn't appear to hurt them. After finishing turning it 180° and getting it into deeper water it slowly began to right itself again.

After that I wanted to run it awhile in cleaner water to flush out the clay, mud and any debris that might have gotten sucked up into the mechanical areas. But I couldn't go very fast because the pond was only about two and a half times as long as the boat itself. The surroundings of the pond were just empty fields of semi-dry grass on one side, woods at the opposite end from the dump, and the chain link fence on the other long side.

By now I could only run the boat forward and backwards in a straight line. I was starting to get really frustrated and noticing that my circumstances were much more restrictive now and wishing for more water. Then I woke up.

Frozen Faces

Eph. 4:29 Allow no word that is not life-giving proceed out of my mouth, but only allow past my lips that which is good, relevant and appropriate for building up both others and myself in the body of Christ according to what is really needed, so that my words will impart life, empowerment to prosper, the very presence of God to everyone who hears me.

Father, expose and detach the false gods in my soul and heart. Cause me to truly believe that you are the only source of life for me and cause me to remain in your life-giving presence. I choose to allow you to unlock the hidden areas of my mind, heart and memories and look inside and expose every lie with your warm light. Thank-you for protecting me from yourself by shielding me initially from the full revelation of your passion for me that would traumatize and immobilize me and create yet another lie in me about you.

I invite you Jesus to make my body and mind and emotions your place to settle down and make yourself at home. Go ahead and sort through anything you want. Throw out the trash, expose the false sources of pleasure and pain that I depend on to get me through every situation and need that arises. Show me my emptiness and hollowness. Melt the frozen ice sculptures that remain locked in my dark freezer, those faces of intimidation, abuse, anger, pride and bitterness still frozen in place in my sub-consciousness that trigger my reactions yet today. I have tried for years to scrap away those frozen faces of fear, shame, abuse and pride but I usually only manage to make my fingers cold and suffer more pain trying to scrap away the deep engravings frozen in my memories.

It is starting to dawn on me that no one can scrap away or pry loose the evil faces of ice staring out the windows of my frozen soul, even if they manage to unlock the freezer door and get inside for a few minutes. What I need more than anything else is heat. Of course, too much heat too soon would damage my frozen fingers and toes so God has been careful and patient with me. But I must have warmth soon or the cold itself will destroy even more of my capacity for being fully alive.

Jesus, I give you permission right now to pull the power supply off my freezer, to remove the locks and even the doors and bring in the halogen lights to the inner recesses of my mind and heart. It will be ugly and messy for awhile as the faces melt in grotesque nightmares of fear. But don't remove the light of your face for a moment or I will be overcome with terror.

One of your favorite names is Immanuel – God is with us. I understand that according to the way you wired us, my nervous system experiences JOY as the feeling I experience when someone is genuinely glad to be with me in my present feelings and emotions, that I am the sparkle in someone's eyes, that something about me causes their heart to leap for joy and their face to light up and their spirit to sing. That sound overwhelmingly wonderful but seems ridiculously unreal.

I have heard rumors about you that you feel that way about me. But most of what I have been taught and experienced has been the opposite. Just look at all the frozen faces and statues in my hall of fame. God, it's been a very long, cold and bitter winter that reminds me of the winter of Narnia. But even as I write these words there are melting drops condensing down my cheeks. I believe that spring is coming soon and the Son is beginning to warm up and break through the thick clouds.

Idol Struggle

God is telling me repeatedly in Ezekiel that I have no business inquiring of Him advice on how to live or how He should bless me or others because I have defiled myself with my father's idols and made my children “pass through the fire” and profaned the intimacy God offered to me in the Sabbath. Chapter 14 says if I have idols, sources of life or objects of fear-power that bow me down to them, if I have these idols in my heart and put them before my face which are stumbling-blocks keeping me from trusting God, and then I come to one of His prophets, one who is openly connected to Him to try to attach myself to God – if I attempt this double-minded action, then God Himself will be brought in to give me an answer, but in the context of my sins.

My idols have separated my heart from Him and have made me a stranger from Him. When I separate from Him, set up my substitute sources of control in my heart and keep them before my face, and then pressure the prophet to give me a word from the Lord, I will bring my own guilt and sin on that person and cause them to suffer the same guilt and estrangement I am suffering. But then He says this will happen in order that I will no longer stray from Him or defile myself with all my sins. I will be one of His people and He will be my God.

Repeatedly I am asked to repent and let go of these foreign gods. Chapter 20 says God chose me, made Himself known to me, swore to me, brought me out of bondage, gave me wonderful principles of life, informed me, offered me intimate time with Him every Sabbath – all this that I might really comet to know Him.

But the idols, big or small that I have allowed or have been victim to, have always distorted my perception of Him. The idols lie to me about God's motives and intentions toward me and I continue to give them more credibility than God's testimony about Himself. So I rebelled against Him, am not willing to listen, did not aggressively throw out the lies and the pleasure-producing substitutes that I look to for satisfaction.

God is wrestling against His own nature through all of this to protect me from Himself while still trying to seduce and allure me to fall in love with Him. One part of Him resolves to pour out His passion on me and overwhelm me right where I am in the land of “Egypt” where I feel comfortable. But if He did I would misjudge His passion to be wrath and anger and would further withdraw from Him. So the other side of Him restrains His overwhelming longing and desire for me and determines to act unilaterally for the sake of His own reputation and to personally remove the stumbling-blocks that clutter the way between us. He overrules His own passion repeatedly and even resists and protects me from the full consequences of my idol worship while (v. 33) He promises passionately that He will be my king, He will bring me out... and gather me with great might and power and passion. He will bring me to the wilderness where there are no distractions and will enter into full disclosure with me face to face. He will initiate me and bring me solidly into His blood covenant. He will purge me of rebellion, He will bring me out of my wandering so that I will know in my heart that He is my Lord and my God like Thomas did. In verse 39 He tells me to be honest and serve my idols, but later I will listen to him and will profane His reputation no longer.

He takes responsibility for fixing this hopeless problem. He says that on His mountain in the wilderness I will serve Him and He will accept me and seek my gifts of love to Him. He will prove Himself holy in me. Then I will remember the hopeless condition that He rescued me from and all my profanities and hypocrisy against Him and I will loathe myself, but I will know that He is the real Lord because He did all this for me for His name's sake, not at all according to how I acted or thought. God will shower me clean and remove my hardness and implant the passion of love inside me – all for His name's sake so that everyone will know the truth about Him.

Face Short-circuit

When we place our face in front of the video screen we set in motion several natural laws of the mind. We begin to synchronize our minds and hearts with a greater capacity mind. We download beliefs, ideas and patterns of thinking and reacting into our mother-core that are mostly subconscious while consciously we think we are filtering much of it out. We short-circuit the system of mutual, reciprocal shared mindsight that we are designed to have with other real faces and minds, and instead train our brains to only operate in one direction. The screen cannot respond to the messages returning from our eyes and faces but continues to overwhelm us with powerful messages designed to arouse and exercise our emotions without face to face interaction.

We then experience more and more difficulty experiencing healthy mindsight with other humans because of this trained short-circuit which, if continued, sets us up for the ultimate meltdown when everyone is exposed to the intense passion of God's face in person. (see Ezekiel 14)

An idol is anything or anyone I use to get life from without enjoying the presence of God and having His blessing.

Near Meltdown

Allow the Holy Spirit to energize you with the passion of God's own heart. Allow Him to synchronize your thoughts, desires and responses with His thoughts and emotions as you continually seek His face. There remains yet a rest for the people of God for you to enter into. Be energized by His joy as you see yourself and others through heaven's eyes. Be quieted and comforted in His protective arms as you enter His rest. (Hebrews 4)

Yesterday in the middle of work and a discussion with Keith, the topic of identity came up. We talked about the problem of attempting to receive identity and value by force against others and our externals in contrast to the desperate need to discover our true identity in the face of God. I don't remember the details of the conversation, but I vividly remember the sudden rush of pain and emotion from very deep within my soul when I realized we were talking about my own condition.

Most of my perceived identity is resting on my growing knowledge and understanding of these wonderful truths and insights we have been receiving over the past few years. But in spite of all the important concepts I am learning I still don't have a foundation of restful assurance of God's confident care and His opinion of my value. I am learning about it and even promoting it but my own heart is still far from being thawed out from the ice and cold produced by the lies like so many chunks of dry ice embedded in my deepest memories forming my concept of who I am.

For a few minutes I could not speak or work or even stand as I tried to allow the emotions to be recognized and acknowledged while at the same time I was also trying to prevent a complete meltdown (probably not the best choice). I mentioned my internal situation to Keith and he became afraid he had said something wrong. The experience was awkward because two systems were clashing. I was grateful that my heart was awakening at all from a much deeper level but was confused and afraid of what to do with these unfamiliar feelings that I only recognized theoretically from recent training. I praised God that there are signs of life in my little boy heart but sad that we as a community of friends still lack the context to know how to encourage and create an environment that is safe enough for any one of us to spontaneously process these God-moments.