waking dreams... a landslide...

This morning's waking dream... a landslide... bringing down masses of mud... dirt...

Horses... large beasts... people... unable to get a foothold...
No out running it... only succumbing to its power...
Buried in mounds of mud...

Standing on a tree-strewn road... I watched...
Cars stopped... others pacing... looking on...
but no one could do anything to help those caught in the slide...

The visions linger... press... disturb...
so I ask Him if it has meaning...

The thought comes to mind...

The danger of ascending a slippery slope

is that it eventually turns into a landslide.

Seeking His Word... regarding shifting ground... I find...

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven...

Colossians 1:21-23 ESV

And you... 

He has reconciled... 

in order to present you holy and blameless... 

if indeed you continue in the faith... stable and steadfast...

not shifting...

What causes shifting... from faith...?

Compromise...

Doubt...

Pessimism...

Leaning on your own understanding...

These are some things... which cause instability... 

Things I struggle with...

Maybe you could add more...

I think back again on the dream... 

Even though the slide was happening on the hillside right next to the road I was standing on... it was stable... firm...

Others standing with me... had no fear of getting buried... there seemed to be no need to run...

But the watching of the disaster... stirred me to pray for those on the slope... and those with me... clearly distressed by what they saw...

A verse comes to mind as I consider the road in the dream...

And a highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;

the unclean shall not pass over it.

It shall belong to those who walk on the way;

even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

Isaiah 35:8

His Way... a highway... the Way of Holiness...

the way of faith... stable... steadfast...

no shifting...

Lord... keep me on the Way...

Show me where I may be shifting today...

through compromise... doubt... pessimism...

or leaning on my own understanding...

If this is a warning for me... Amen...

If it is a message for another...

bless me with the boldness... and grace...

to share it...

immersed in creation...

I found myself... immersed in creation... 5 p.m at Wal-Mart... wall to wall... creation...

A world-view shift... one God's been working in me for over a year now... triggered by a story I'd read before... and came across again today... in the treadmill read...

Several years ago one of my students who lived a distance away and rode a crowded bus to college each day said to his wife as he went out the door one morning, "I'm just going to go out and immerse myself in God's creation today." The next day his parting words were the same. On the third day, she called him back, "Don't you think you ought to go to class today? A couple of days of walking in the woods or on the beach is okay, but don't you think enough is enough?"

He said, "Oh, I've been going to class every day."

"Then what," she said, "is all this business about immersing yourself in creation?"

"Well, I spend forty minutes on the bus each morning and afternoon. Can you think of a setting more thick with creation than that --- all these people created, created in the image of God, created male and female?"

"I never thought of that," she said.

"You mean you've never read Genesis?"

--- Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

People... male and female... God's greatest creation... the only ones bearing His image...

A shift... to consider the masses in Wal-Mart... or those on a crowded city bus... as creation...

The evidence that they are the most beloved... of all creation... is the brokenness... the woundedness... the scars from the many inflictions of the enemy... no other part of God's creation gets that kind of special attention...

These... people who cross our paths... block our paths... are the neighbors... we are commanded to love... as we love ourselves...

How about you... do you love Wal-Mart at 5 p.m....? Or overcrowded public transportation...? Do you recognize God's greatest workmanship... when you see it...?

Jesus said... Whatever you did for the least of these... you did for Me...

This is a verse with which I struggle... seeing Him... in the least... the grumpy... the rude... the everyday masses... in Wal-Mart at 5 p.m....

Perhaps I need to make a point... to go shopping more often at peak Wal-Mart hours... intentionally immerse myself in God's creation... ask Him to open my eyes... my heart... to what He sees... and feels...

If we are going to enjoy and celebrate and live this gift of place in which the Lord God has placed us, we are going to have to embrace the people around us with the same delight as we do the hawks soaring above us and the violets blooming at our feet. Men and women, children and the elderly, the beautiful and the plain, the blind and the deaf, amputees and paralytics, the mentally impaired and the emotionally distraught --- each a significant and sacred detail of nature, of God's creation.

--- Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

 Lord... help me see Your image... in each of Your creations...

[Note... Yet again... I failed at posting the readings for The Journey on Sunday... so here they are a day late... but will sneak back... and add them to the bottom of yesterday's...]

This week's readings for The Journey...
Monday                              Genesis 27
Tuesday                              Genesis 28
Wednesday                         Genesis 29:1 - 30:24 
Thursday                             Genesis 30:25-43
Friday                                 Genesis 31