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Separation

Funny dream last night. In it I had the opportunity to confront someone who had deeply offended me many years ago. I was not angry. I had prayed through and talked out the situation several times before and had long since made my peace. I did not speak in malice or with any desire to hurt but I spoke so that person would understand. They understood. You’re thinking that maybe they asked for forgiveness and we had a happy ending, but they didn’t. It wasn’t necessary. What was necessary was for me to articulate my hurt and anger to someone whom I will likely never have the opportunity to speak to in this life and feel that they understood my hurt.

It was such a stark and realistic dream that it woke me up immediately after I had said my piece. As I lay in bed pondering it I realized that I still had a sliver of a thorn in my heart that I was not aware of. Job chapter 33 says, “For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on their beds. . .”  God spoke to me in my dream.

B.G. over at O.C. has been talking about separation lately, or how God pulls back to create space for us to discover our need and search for Him. It’s always amazing to me how God can accomplish more in a 30 second dream than I can in a lifetime. As I pondered, it was revealed to me how I had not really been angry at the offending party of my dream but that I had been angry at God. Now, I confess that I have had times when I’ve been angry with my Maker and there was no doubt between Him and me of that fact. I was angry and I let Him know it. He wasn’t impressed, by the way. But this was deeper.

I was taken back to the story of a small child who had been offended when his mother abandoned him in kindergarten and then later when that child grew to adolescence and was abandoned once again by divorcing parents and older siblings moving away from home. In both situations that child was forced to make decisions that he was not prepared to make and he chose to be angry about it. He thought he was angry at Mom and Dad and the rest of the world. In reality, by extension, he was angry with God, but he didn’t know it.

That is the story of my personal separation from God. I’m sure you have one too. You see, I had gone through those times thinking God was nowhere, that I was alone, that I had been forsaken and abandoned and, if it was to be, it was up to me. And I was angry.

The good news is that God was always there, I just didn’t know it. And, in a moment of time, in a dream, God gently pulled the sliver of a thorn out of the child/man’s heart, and that space between Him and me, in that moment became much smaller. As I continued to ponder on my bed I suddenly realized that my anger was gone. What I didn’t know was there but always knew was there was gone. Now it was my turn. I did the only thing I could do. In a moment I realized my fault and my sin and asked His forgiveness.

“ Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” – I Thessalonians 5:23-24