A long time ago, years before I became a Christian, while I was on the spiritual journey seeking God, I had a dream. In it I floated up out the window of a large house, floated up in the air and started moving over the earth. Looking up I saw a brilliant light in the sky, higher than the sky, brighter and more brilliant than the sun.
Floating along and gradually ascending toward the light in the sky, I came to a large city, floated over a crowded, busy downtown area with skyscrapers towering over sidewalks full of people. The streets were shadowed, the people all dressed in heavy, dark clothes, heads down, crowded together and jostling one another as they hurried along.
Looking down at them, I noticed none of them were looking up, none of them aware of the brilliant light in the sky over their heads. And I wondered, why not? How could they not notice? Why did none of them look up?
I did not become a Christian until many years later. So I had plenty of experience of life before and after, and how encounter with Christ and conversion to Him changes everything qualitatively.
In teaching, I often use the image of a triangle to represent the Trinity, the top point representing the Father, the lower points the Son and Holy Spirit.
The other day it occurred to me that life as a Christian is also a kind of triangle. Before my encounter with Christ, life was more horizontal, my awareness of me, my awareness of others. Me a point at one end of a line, others a point at the other end of a line. Kind of like the people in the streets below.
Since Christ, my awareness has also become a kind of triangle, me at one point on the bottom, others at the other point on the bottom, and awareness of God above. A light shining through, sense of openness through which something comes that gives me shivers, joy, a feeling of being lit up.
It helps me see the world differently. More hope, more possibility. Less fear and anxiety, this other thing pouring through from above and giving me joy. It helps me not be lost in hopelessness.
I suppose the dream was prophetic in a way, giving me a sense of where I was going, and what it might be like, though it would not happen for many more years.
But I want to share it with others. Of course, the individual spiritual journey is so unique. In my case, it took many years for me to get into the right place for encounter with Christ – a truly life-changing experience which no one could have forced on me. Only afterwards did I realize how He had been there all along, shepherding and guiding me until I got to that right place. And then guiding me ever since, though now I am more conscious of it.
This is why I write. And teach. How can we know what we are looking for, if we don’t know the possibility is there? I write so others may know there is this possibility, and be open to it, however they are led in life. So others may look up from the shadows of this broken, fallen world, and be lit up with joy, too.
Wellsprings 