Dream 99
Michael’s hammer beats on the dome above the city in a steady booming rhythm. Each blow against the dominating paradigm weathers incremental progress against mindsets of slavery and hopeless indifference.
I lie on my back watching him swing the hammer gracefully. Like a three-kilometer-high mountain of precise aggression, consistent with every stroke intentional.
Somewhere behind me Builder begins to speak.
Builder:
“Progress is not often seen with the naked eye. And much that is seen with the eye has been prepared for a very long time out of sight. Progress is an incremental discipline. You must be consistent and precise son of sorrow.
If that what is seen is used to measure the unseen you will create for the sake of short term manifestation, not for the sake of the manifestation of the heart of the Father.
Those who push for results at the expense of love and relationships do so at the expense of the big picture. You cannot bring heaven to earth by wielding results and objectives like sword at the expense of the souls of mankind. Love must always come first. Love and grace and mercy. These must always come first. For the Father appears to move slowly in bringing heaven to earth but the nature of love is to move at the pace set by the slowest member.”
Me:
“What about the wicked and lazy servant and the fig tree that was cursed for not baring fruit?”
Builder:
“Incremental progress takes the time to produce the correct fruit. And even a small quantity of the correct fruit is pleasing to the Lord for that same tree will bare much sweet fruit in due season.
This is why lashing out in frustration to achieve results in the kingdom is completely counterproductive. You cannot build a kingdom of love on a foundation that is not fullness of love. Take your time, do it right, do it with intentional precision.”
We jump back in time to a younger version of myself shouting at a ministry team for results. We move to me alone, man times, shouting at God for the apparent lack of progress in different ministry fields.
We jump to a staff room of a mega church where the senior pastor confronts and threatens his team for results.
Builder:
“This is not the kingdom of God. This is the kingdom of mammon. The kingdom is first a kingdom of love before it is any other kingdom. If you love the son, you will do as He commands and His command is that you love one another.”
We jump backwards in time and I am twenty years old in a pastor’s office.
I recognize him and immediately dread washes over me. My heart begins to sink and I feel nauseous.
Me:
“Builder, please, not this memory, please. I am begging you.”
Builder:
“You must see this so that those who read what you record may know the weight of their actions.”
I remember the emotions vividly. I love this pastor. He is like a father to me. I travel with him and serve him. I like his daughter. I love his whole family; I love his church. This is where I want to be. I have laid down my life to serve this man.
He is angry. I am not sure why. I sit down as instructed and he calls in all his staff. There has never been an issue before, why is he so angry?
He starts off by telling me that this meeting will conclude with me no longer being welcome at the church. His words wash over me like cold acid, I struggle to concentrate on all he says and I try to put on a brave face.
He reads from a prepared document detailing why I am not good enough for his daughter. My lack of education, lack of travelling the world as she has (with him), my lack of culture, my inability to look after her like she deserves because I have committed to serve God full time for the rest of my life. He reads a list of my character and personality faults in front of all his staff and humiliates me before concluding with the words ‘no man draw near me unless I ask him to’.
I wait for the meeting to end and stumble out of his office, still putting on a brave face. I am twenty years old and my soul is crushed so badly by this man that I love so much. Far more than I like his daughter. To him I am trash that needed to be thrown out.
I make it to the restroom and throw up.
I drive home in silence, not knowing what to do with these emotions. I park my car and go for a walk. A long walk. Two hundred kilometers. I don’t think a single memorable thought but I feel every hope and desire die within me.
A childhood of hell. Too many betrayals. This rejection is too much for me. There is just nothing in my spirit that can handle what just happened.
A friend drives very far to fetch me and I stay at his place. I am so devastated and feel so worthless that I go outside each night and sleep in the gutter. My love for God dies inside me and I spend the next twenty years serving Him purely out of discipline. I go through life not trusting love, never committing my heart to another human being again. Even loving my wife in pure discipline, ready for the inevitable rejection that my soul prepares for each day. We do crusades, plant churches, feed the poor, make movies and do many cool things for the kingdom but my soul is empty and broken, I cannot trust God to look after me and I cannot trust man to love me.
I go through twenty-two years before the dreams start and my journey towards healing begins. I never forget that day in that man’s office. It was the straw that broke the Camel’s back.
Builder:
“You are not the only one who walks with such burdens. Many hearts are destroyed by those entrusted to lead them and shepherd them. These are the actions of hirelings who place their personal objectives before kingdom objectives and label their own impatience and mistrust as if it were God’s.
You cannot build a kingdom of love on any other foundation son of sorrow. Love must always come first!
For that which is sown always produces a harvest and that which was sown into you created a harvest of bitterness and anguish. And that which is harvest is also seed sown to create more of the same.
Those who justify the cold, brutal leadership of hirelings over them are sincerely misled and endorse the spirit of tyrants within the body of Christ. You cannot build a kingdom of bitterness within a kingdom of love. Sweet and sour water cannot flow from the same fountain.
You are to lead in love. Let love come first always for this is the central law of the kingdom of God. Those who do not walk in intentional love do not know the Father. Do not assume that all who speak with overpowering personalities and loud voices are of this kingdom, they are bullies and opportunists who build for themselves empires and crown themselves with titles and positions that the son has commanded they should not have. The meek shall inherit the earth, be meek. Serve as the son serves. Be a servant. Walk in love. Be gentle and filled with kindness and compassion. This is the heart of the kingdom son of sorrow.”
Me:
“But what of Jesus making a whip, overturning tables, rebuking Pharisees and calling the king a fox? And how do we protect the weak from evil men who threaten the weak with guns and knives? Evil men subjugate kind men with force. They do not play by the rules.”
Builder:
“Evil men subjugate individuals who do not operate in unity. An entire nation can idly stand by while evil men grow in power because the nation does not act as one. Unity brings with the power to stop evil men before they become powerful. Be incremental in your approach, move in intentional love. Grow a strong, solid army of believers who would lay down their lives for the advance of the kingdom and do not underestimate the power of unity.
Be angry but do not allow your anger to cause you to sin son of sorrow. The anger of the righteous still produces righteousness and still brings hope and healing to those whom the Father calls. The center of even anger must be love. If destruction is sown, destruction will be the harvest.
Be as shepherds and sheep, not hirelings and wolves.
The kingdom is all son of sorrow and our is a kingdom of love!
Me:
“I shall meditate upon these things. Wrath produces hatred and hatred produces more hatred. We shall strive to carriers of peace and love. And in unity and love shall the light force out the darkness. The kingdom is all!”
I wake up.
