Abide #1: The Dream
One night, after a long day of editing the videos that were becoming Season One of The Revolutionary Life, I lay down on our bed in the RLI House in Northern Thailand. I was stressed, pressed with the constant deadlines that come with TV production. These dates hung over my head, whistling in my ear 24/7.
“You have no time to play. You have no time to rest,” they would say. And I would listen.
Darlene and I were working morning till after bedtime everyday: waking, working, sleeping, waking, working, sleeping. Repeat. My To-do list stretched a mile long and hung from my shoulders, its train filling every corner of my life and claiming every calorie of energy. I was overwhelmed, but there was something else going on, something different and beyond the physical and mental drain of hard work. It was deeper, spiritual, and no amount of accomplishment was filling this void I felt in my heart.
In the natural everything was going great. We had been accepted for international broadcast; I was doing what I am made to do – living a world-wide mission adventure with the love of my life; fulfilling my calling,; traveling and seeing the beauties that poets have written volume about. I was even about to reach a few personal goals with the releasing of my first book. But still, something was wrong; I felt unfulfilled and empty. I fell asleep that night, praying.
“Lord, help me. I don’t know what’s going on inside, but I feel miserable. It almost hurts. Help me.” And if fell asleep.
The next moment I found myself in a massive church building, or perhaps it was a stadium, I am unsure. The place was filled to the brim with worshipers crying out to their God. It was some kind of conference. I joined in the worship, crying out to my awesome God and the Lord Jesus Christ, lifting His name, calling from the deepest of me, pleading for relief from the dryness I felt in my soul. I needed Him. I was desperate.
At this point in my dream I saw that the leaders of the conference we beginning to lay hands on and pray for every person there. They had teams of ministers and intercessors going from person to person. As the team assigned to my area got nearer I recognized the woman coming my way. Her name is Susie, she is a prayer partner and giver of our ministry and a good friend for many years. She and her husband have been a source of encouragement for a long time and I was thrilled to see that it would be her praying for me (I am particular who I allow to lay hands on me and pray).
Susie approached, smiled, and started to pray for me. As soon as she laid her hands on my shoulder the Holy Spirit overwhelmed me and I felt my knees buckle. Throughout my years of being a follower of Christ I have only fell under the power a few times – it is not a normal occurrence – but this time I not only fell, but crumbled. Before I realized what had happened I was on the ground, wailing. Tears burst from my eyes without my consent and groans that can not be uttered began to come painfully from my lips. I lay there and prayed in tongues, and as I did a strange feeling came over me. It was as if sorrow, a deep, deep sadness, began to flow out of me as I prayed in the spirit. With every heavenly syllable another ounce of sorrow was released from my heart, and it kept coming, and kept coming, and kept coming…
I woke with a start. Tears were still moving on my cheek and my mouth was still praying in tongues, uttering those magical and mysterious words that can not be spelled. My heart wasn’t racing; it was calm, but the sorrow that was flowing in a steady stream from belly to lips was thick, overwhelming, and constantly being expelled through these spiritual syllables. This continued for a while, I don’t know how long, until I was able to calm down and go back to sleep.
The next morning I told Darlene about my dream.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “I mean I do and I don’t. I know that the Lord was trying to heal me from something, but from what? I feel the problem, but I don’t know what exactly it is and where it is coming from. Is there a deep sadness in me that until now I felt but didn’t know I felt?”
So I took it to the Lord in prayer. A few days later, in between editing sessions, I cracked open the Bible to Psalms…
To be continued…
