Dreams

I've always believed that dreams are an important part of who we are. On occasion, I've even looked up the symbolism of things that happen in my dreams. I think even in high school, I had a dream dictionary. I never have the typical recurrent dreams, but I do have recurrent patterns in my dreams. And man, I have had some doozies over the last few years. Over all, I think that dreams - my dreams in particular - are a mix of what my mind spends it time on during the day, conscientiously, interjected with parts of my subconsciousness.

Some times I have had prophetic dreams - things that happen in my dreams actually happening that day or the next day. At the same time, I also believe that God can use dreams to get a message to people, when He so desires or if that is the way a person needs to hear message to know it's true. Last night was one of the latter dreams.

Since moving I have been in a state of Church shopping. Oddly enough, most of it has been online - in the sense that I look for churches in a certain mile radius of my house and then look to see if they have a website that I can read about their values and beliefs to see if I would be able to be a member of that church. I have a few that I have been wanting to check out, but I found one that fits me 100% in all of the important stuff - it is just WAY too big (3000+ people per weekend). But there are a TON of small groups and a TON of people my age, so I think I really want to get connected there.

I also think that I am a really bad church shopper. Every time I have moved, I find a church and go to it. If I like it, I go back and give it a second try. If it fits, I stay. I don't like going to a new place every week. Part of me also feels bad going to a church and then not coming back. I don't know why. If it's not a fit, then it's not a fit.

When I first moved to Milford and was wondering around downtown, I saw a flyer for a church in town that was doing a Wednesday night Bible Study series on the Lord's Prayer from Matthew. I wrote down the website and checked it out when I got home. It seemed like a really solid, Bible based church. So, in the back of my mind I figured I would try it out one of those weeks.

So last night I set my alarm, fully intending to get up and go the big church again. Only, God had something different in mind. As I slept, I dreamed that I was at this other church and it was packed full of people that I know and love. People that, in retrospect, exemplify everything I loved about my previous church homes (Hope, Trinity, and Hamilton Street). I'm not calling these people perfect, but they are each are perfect examples of things my heart has been missing. There were even some people there that I know from places outside of church, but who have played a role in who I am in Christ.

So I wake up, and look at the clock and realize it is a good 3 hours before the alarm is set for. I pet the cat and go back to sleep. Only, I have the same dream again. Same church building as before, same people, only some strangers were mixed in there too. When I wake up the second time I know in my heart that God wants me to go to this church this morning. So I get up, start to get ready and get online to find out exact times of the service.

Not knowing what to expect, I go. When I get their (about 3 minutes after the published start time) they are just finishing the first worship song (whoa, a church that starts on time!) so I sit in the back. It is a big church, but people are only on one side. I count. There are 33 people there - not including children. By the end of the service, I think I met a good 20 of them - which is about 18 more people than I have met so far at the big church. The senior pastor also lead worship, with the help of one guy playing guitar. But after church, he and his wife invited me over for dinner one night this week. But these connections with people, while important, are not why God wanted me to go there today.

It was the message. I literally almost broke down 4 times during the sermon. It was written 100% for me. My heart and head needed to hear every word that was said. I was feverishly taking notes in my Bible and they spilled over to the bulletin because I ran out of room on the page we were in. While I need to spend the rest of today studying my little butt off (reason why coming in a future post) all of me knows that what I really need to do today is to park in Hebrews 10 and Psalm 1 to make my heart renewed purely in God again. What I want to do everyday needs to be realigned with what God wants me to do everyday. Only then will the priorities in life be right at only then will I be successful in what I need to do - both for the sake of the Gospel and for the sake of medical school and my current/future patients!