Here we go......
I was walking into a small mom and pop looking grocery store with two of my very good friends. We didn't talk to each other nor interact in any way but we were simply together. We walked through the store picking up random items of no consequences. It wasn't really what we were shopping for but our state of being. We were walking around like mindless zombies, hollow tired eyes, not smiling but not frowning either. There was an unseen weight that hunched our shoulders and even prohibited us from standing up straight. Inside and out, we were worn-out and weary. However, the customers in the store could not see our sad states, they only saw us as our normal selves.
We approached the register to check out. The young man behind the counter was beyond enthusiastic. Not in the irrigating way but in such a way that makes you feel the tickling vibrations of pure joy. He was happily chatting, when one of my friends walked to the front of the resister to browse the random items at the front of the small store. Suddenly he looks up, as if seeing us for the first time, and softly sighs.
He says: "Hey! Do you girls go to church?"
All three of us looked at one another and just busted up laughing. The ironic hilarity of his simple question caused an eruption of laughter.
He is not dissuaded at all by our laughing and continues, "I go to church just across the street and would love it if you came to visit."
We simply laugh harder and harder .............. until I wake up.
And I wake up with one thought, "He didn't know we were Christians!" I sobbed. Even though it was just a dream, my heart was grieved. I have served the Lord for almost 15 years and he couldn't tell. In fact, all three of us have served and pastored in the church for more years than we have fingers. I immediately cried out to God asking Him to forgive me for acting like I'm not blessed, for letting my ministry turn into a very daunting task, and, most egregiously, not fully living in and celebrating this new life I have. I've been saved from much, MUCH!
This dream shook me! I don't just want to work for the Lord, I want to have fun with Him. I want to revel in His miracles, dance in the showers of His blessing and provision, open my hands wide to the heavens so that I will not miss a single gift, sing at the top of my lungs with a smile as bright as the sun, I want to love people with a love that they have never experienced and a love that changes lives and family trees, I want to see people get healed and not ever forget seeing it, I want to see the dead raised.....and not in a crazy zombie movie way .....raised to new life!
I've walked away with this valuable lesson: Jesus is not in the business of slavery, degradation, or ostracization.
As church leaders, we must be brave enough to check in regularly with the Lord to seek His guidance, asking these very important questions: Am I where You want me to be? Am I doing what You want me to do? What needs to change? Do you have a new assignment for me? Then when He answers, DO IT!!! If we don't do this regularly, we will jeopardize our ministries, our churches, our character.
When I went to retreat in April I walked away with a new lease on life, a statement that I declare often and very loudly when need be:
I'm going to quit WORKING for the Lord and I'm going to start having FUN with Him!!
Come one somebody!!!
Disclaimer: My dream in no way reflects the character of my unnamed friends. My psyche knows that misery loves company! Lol!
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