Twice in my life I have had dreams that were so powerful, so intense that when I awoke, I was certain that the dream had come from God. The first was in college, and involved a message about my own selfishness. It stands with me today.
The second was several months ago.
Alex and I were on a dark highway overpass, after a rainstorm. You have to understand--it began in the middle--in medias res. Cars were barreling down at us--well, at her. She was stumbling around right in the middle of the road, as if she couldn't see at all, calling for me, calling "Daddy," in a pleading, almost desperate voice. I could see her as she was narrowly missed by one car, then knocked to the ground, crying, by another. But I couldn't reach out to her, I couldn't touch her, couldn't rescue her. It continued with cars coming left and right, and the whole time she was calling my name, crying and screaming for my help, my protection.
All this time, there was a sidewalk to her left, one she could step on and be safe. Then a car came straight for her. I stepped out and waved both arms, and swirved it to the side. It missed. Then another, and another. I waved one, had to push another, and at one point stepped right in front of a speeding bus and put both hands on it and flexed every muscle from my fingertips to my heels as I forcably stopped it just before it hit her. The bus pulled to the side.
All this time she is crying for me, taking bumps and being knocked down. At one point she got onto the sidewalk and was able to rest and it was peaceful and she was safe, but then she tried to go somewhere--why not stay in the safe place?--and stepped back into the highway.
Awaking from that dream I was perhaps the saddest I had ever been. Never in the course of human history has a man loved his daughter like I love Alex, and seeing her hurt, lost and scared was the most aweful torture possible for me.
I was visiting a customer that day, and also a potential funding source for the company. As I got dressed and read my Bible, I kept coming back to the dream. What did it mean? Was Alex in some danger? What could I do to protect her from that, to keep her from experiencing that fear, that horror?
Since then, every time she tells me she is scared, I come back to that night and I am immediately her protector. I will cover her with whatever I can, even my own body, to rescue her from that fear, or any fear.
The meeting with my customer went well. The General Manager was surprised to see me-he was expecting Loren, and we quickly established a relationship and a trust that goes on, despite our having spent only a few minutes together.
While I was talking with him, and after, I kept wondering--what was God telling me? Why did He send me the dream?
As I drove from the customer to the funding source, in the middle of a sunny Phoenix highway, it hit me. The dream wasn't about me and Alex--that was just to help me understand. In the dream, the person who Alex represented was me, and I was seeing her from the vantage point of Jesus--protecting me, loving me, saving me from my own blind choice not to step up on the sidewalk, from my own need to live a dangerous, sinful life in a dangerous, sinful world. Protecting me even to the point of endangering his own body. I couldn't see the dangers, but He could. I could call out to Him, but in His answers, all he could do was protect me, sacrifice Himself to keep me safe--He couldn't physically reach me.
Realizing this as I drove down a ten lane highway looking for my exit, I broke down crying, huge shoulder sobs wracking my body as I pulled into the Arizona State University Research Park. I was early, and it subsided quickly. I cleaned myself up and had a great meeting.
For the unbelievers out there--I've been under some stress, and it is very true that never in the course of human history has a man loved his daughter like I love Alex. So maybe it was just a dream. I don't remember what I had for dinner--maybe that, coupled with the stress of travel and sleeping in a strange bed gave me a really powerful dream and I reacted to it emotionally. Maybe that's all it was.
For those of you who know better...well, we know better, don't we?
In either case, the effect is real, and it is the same. If Alex says she is scared, I wrap her up and hold her and first help her with her fear, even if she is as wrong as wrong can be. I can't leave her on the highway, and, different from the dream, I can reach out to her, comfort her and love her with real skin-on-skin contact. She'll grow out of this and while I don't like seeing her scared, I do treasure playing this role in her life.
There is another effect, and it is just as real. I am pushing, driving with my big thigh muscles, to get on that sidewalk, to eliminate sin in my life. I can't fight the evil in this world, and I have to trust in the invisible Jesus to stop that bus and keep it from crushing me. But I can fight sin in my life. It is clear to me now that the sidewalk is the place without sin, without deceit, without malice or envy or hatred or jealosy; it is the place where love reigns. I don't control those emotions in others. I can't keep others from hating, from feeling jealosy, from lying, from hurting each other. But I can fight them down in myself, and so I am, every day, every minute, except when I forget or fail or get lost or confused and try to do something that isn't quite right, and step back down into the highway.
