Signs and dream meanings....

Do you believe that "signs" or messages can be given to us just in a regular moment of the day?...Or through our dreams at night?

Personally, I believe this happens.

Recently, my mother told me a story of something that had just happened to her during the week. She told me this story, not in an over-joyous way, but in a tone of wonder and mystery. It's a story about a clock....

This clock sits inside a globe and is made to sit on a table. It has a golden regulator that spins four little golden globes when it is working. It was a wedding gift to her and my father 37 years ago when they were married. The clock has never worked from the first day.
Mom said, "You remember this clock?", as she pointed to it on the table in the living room. I noticed it was working and I had never seen it work before. I remembered the clock.
She said, "This clock has never worked before and it just started working. Its time is a little fast, but it's working."
"Ha", I said, thinking that it was interesting...wondering why it never worked and just started working.
Then she said, "You know, the funny thing is, it's an answer to a prayer. I said a prayer for something and I thought to myself, 'Why can't I have a sign about this? Why can't it be this clock?' Then not long after, it started working."
This touched me. How we need these signs sometimes! I thought. It's a treasure when we're given one. "Is it the answer you wanted?" I asked her.
"Yes."
"I don't suppose you're going to share what the prayer was?", I asked.
"Nope."
I smiled....and looked at the working clock.



I've had a couple of experiences myself where I believe God was telling me something. Like everyone else, I've also had many dreams, but only a couple that I believe were truly something God was wanting to tell me. I've always kept these things to myself...always remembering that my imagination can make up a wide variety of things and better not to throw out a stumbling block if I'm wrong. I say this because I also think there is a danger of interpretting these kinds of things to mean what we want them to mean. In a way "seeing what we want to see" so-to-speak. But I believe that God does give such things as a gift when we really need assurance. We need to keep our focus on Him, not only what we want for ourselves.


It seems though, in the Bible stories, that God TOLD them that "this is a sign to you...", so how could they get it wrong?

Is it just me, or does it seem like science (and I love science) has seemed to cause people to take a reductionistic view of what once were seen as "magical" or "mysterious"...as something from God?
For example, before science could give a scientific explanation for lightning, it was probably seen as one of the mysterious creations from God, and something that lead people to be awestruck, and at times maybe even thought it as God communicating something (not always but maybe more so than today). Now...although it is still a creation from God, we probably are more likely to see lightning today and not think much of it...Such as it being just the charged electrons reacting when hot and cold air collide...and so forth. In other words, explaining it away or dismissing it because there's a physical scientific explanation for it. Or...maybe...dismissing it just because we're "used to it" or take it for granted.

One example would be the rainbow God sent as a sign to Noah (see Genesis 9:12-17)
God sent the rainbow, but in the verses it says that "God said to Noah, 'This is the sign of the covenant'...." But when we look at a rainbow today, yes we think they're beautiful, but do we remember it as a sign from God, or just think about how it is the reflection of rays from the sun and those rays are bent from water in the air?

I remember once about a few months ago, I was wandering through a large bookstore and came across a book by Frederick Buechner (a great author, by the way!). I picked up a book I've been wanting to buy since it first came out and just haven't done it yet. It's called "Secrets in the Dark". And I remember randomly flipping through the pages and I came across the beginning of a story in the book that told about a young boy. I don't know how old he was, but young...maybe pre-teen or something...with a mouth full of bubblegum, and he was gazing at the stars. The book gives a desciption of the stars he is gazing at...They spell out the words..."GOD EXISTS" (or something really close to that...I'm going by memory here). And as the young boy gazes, wide eyed...staring, chewing on his gum, his response is...."So what."

When I think of signs, our personal signs from God, some people may wonder "Why don't I receive a sign from God about this?"
Well, are we truly looking for it? Do we really believe a sign will be there if we ask Him? Are we keeping Christ at the center of our universe and not ourselves? After all, when we do see a sign, sometimes we realize it has been in front of us all along. Has it always been right in front of us....and we've only been saying "So what?"

If God truly knows our hearts better than we know our own hearts, doesn't he know whether or not we'll recognize a sign when he sends it? Maybe He doesn't send one because He already knows we won't see it for what it is.

I believe we need these signs from time to time. Something inside us needs this wonder and mystery...to know that we are being watched over by someone much greater than ourselves.

I want the eyes of my heart to be open.





Just some thoughts.

Flying Pencils

I once worked in an office where many of my co-workers formed this certain habit. Whenever they would receive a phone call from a customer that would cause them to have to get involved in some sort of problem solving, they would roll their eyes and throw their pencil up in the air....so high sometimes they would stick in the ceiling tiles.

This became so common that there were many times, on my way to get coffee, I'd walk by an office area that contained three separate desks divided by partition walls, and sure enough, there would be a pencil flyin' up and twirling above one of the walls. What would our customers think if they knew how much we rolled our eyes at them?

It's hard sometimes to try to keep from catching a negative attitude the way we try to avoid the flu. I remember trying to feed positive thoughts in my mind to counter the negative atmosphere...It's a contagious thing--negativity.

Why is it that we get so burned out? Our country is so blessed beyond measure in our comforts and the things we have, but yet we still get so negative and so burned out in our jobs. Why? Is there a secret to keeping everything "fresh"...or what I mean is, every situation unique...so that we learn something new every time -- even when the work day seems the same as the day before and the day before that?

Maybe it would be possible if we start realizing the reality of the soul behind the person on the other end of the phone or sitting in front of us. They are a unique person, like you, like me, with their many unique qualities and situations and thoughts....And God loves them...even when you find them the most obnoxious and annoying person on earth. (Many times I've confessed to God that "I'm glad He loves this person because I sure can't!" --- I know this must sound awful...after all, "to love God is to love those that he loves...right!?).

I wonder these things sometimes. I try to remind myself that all my actions are being watched by others. Every action says something about me. Every action they do says something about them. What would they see? I know what I would hope they'd see, but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be it. We're always setting an example...either a good one or a bad one.

I think the trick is changing from the inside what we know needs to be changed. If we only change from the outside, we become fakes. But if we change on the inside and not worry about the outside, we have integrety...and that's admired.

Magic and Mystery....oh my!!!

Today is the day that some people are going nuts....
Nuts over Harry Potter. The first day the final book hits the bookstores. All over the news last night they were showing Harry Potter parties. Gozillion of people waiting in lines, dressed as the Harry Potter characters.

This morning, as a watched the TV over coffee, they were interviewing children on why they love Harry Potter so much. Almost all the answers I heard were that they like the way that they feel transported to the magical world of Hogwarts, with all its magic and spells.

Although I don't go "all out" the way these people do over Harry Potter, I have to admit, even as an adult I've enjoyed reading the three Harry Potter books I've read. How fun!

But after listening to the kids on TV, I've wondered to myself, "Why is it that children (and adults) are so drawn to magic, or the "fairy tale" stories...or to escape to that world of imagination?"

I think it stems from desire. Human beings, in general, naturally have a desire for the mysterious, for the miraculous. So many of us don't see it in our everyday world, so we create it, and escape to it. And, if we really ponder about it, we can learn about ourselves from it.

I think we have this desire for a reason. After all, as C.S. Lewis puts it, when we're hungry, we have a desire to eat..there is such a thing as food and eating....We have a desire to sleep when we're tired, there is such a thing as sleeping. And therefore, we have a desire for mystery, for something greater, there is such a thing as God.

I think being able to dive into a book and escape into these worlds is a wonderful and insightful thing. But at the same time, I think we should be careful to not miss out on the magic and mystery that really is in our everyday world. But the power of magic belongs to God. If we forget ourselves, and not crave the magic for our own purposes and let Him use it for His purposes, we will see that He can use us in His magic...and it becomes "magic for us". We have to "decode" it in our hearts....for it's hidden in the every-day things.

My one proof.....

In my last post, I wrote about how God speaks all around us through nature..and gives us hints about Himself.
Well, I can't help but also think about the ways that it can be impossible to see God.

When God takes away innocent children...how in one moment a family is happy and cheerful...in the next moment they learn that they will never see their daughter again due to vicious accident.
Where is God in that?
Or when rape occurs. Or when someone is gunned down for never a good reason.
We're flying along in peace and the next minute we're caught in a web, and in two seconds, it's our complete destruction.
Where is God in that?

The terrible examples of possibilities are endless. And I think to myself that I don't think I could be strong enough...if one of these examples happened in my life. What I mean is...I know I could believe in God, but I'd be extremely mad at Him...or even rebellious towards Him. How could a God of Your nature ALLOW THIS???
And He does allow it. It does happen.

The answer I'm given to these thoughts is not really an answer as to "why", but an answer as a question to make me think on a deeper level. It is the question, "Why is it that you feel that this is terribly wrong? Why does it make you extremely sad, mad, and felt like you've been wronged?"
And I think the fact that there is a wrong and a right...and how strongly we feel it..is proof that there is an Absolute. Even in movies, there is almost always, in every movie, an element of good overcoming evil. If there were no power of Good and power of evil, we would not feel it. A child dying or living would not make a difference to us. There IS an absolute. To me, it is my one, sure proof.

Yes...there's something terribly wrong with this world...and terribly wrong things happen... but isn't that what the Bible said all the way from the beginning??...That this is a fallen world?
I don't think my belief in God can be shaken near as easily as my feelings of Him can. He can make me mad, glad, sad, extremely happy, frustrated, loved beyond measure...I can know He's right here, or feel like He's far away.
The world is chaos...Here I am in it. We need our path lighted to guide us through.