Dream 195

I stand upon the air. As if a perfectly transparent glass floor were beneath my feet.
Below me an army of millions of dark shadows rip into a sea of billions of women and children.
Wherever there is darkness, the shadows have their way and wherever they have their way, darkness spreads exponentially.
I witness rape and plunder. I witness corruption and starvation. I witness debased violation and mutilation. I witness human trafficking and forced prostitution.
Here and there, lone missionaries brave the danger of the darkness and shine the biggest torches that they can afford. But even those who fear the light simply slip around it.
I turn to look behind me and see millions of light sources, very few to lend torches and torch bearers to the fight. It breaks my heart and I begin to weep.
Me:
“Oh Father, take me from this wretched earth! Blind my eyes so that I may not see man be wolf to man. Deafen my ears so that I may no longer hear the screams of the desecrated. Wipe my memory so that I may not remember the cruelty of man.
Oh Father! The church is to be the body of the son and the gates of hell are not to withstand its power but see how they squabble, see how they fight. See how their squabbling and fighting turns their eyes from a world that needs them. See how petty their ambitions, to be significant in the eyes of uncaring fathers.
Oh father! Stop my heart, kill this body and let me sleep eternally. Let man wreak hell upon one another without my heart so consistently afflicted by the machinations.
Oh God, oh God, oh God. My heart cannot bare this. Why have you opened my eyes so? Why am I exposed to this world of injustice.
Look at you church! Look at yourself! Why will you not lay down your petty differences and doctrinal disputes? Why will you not lay down your selfish ambitions and petty plans? Can you not see that four billion people live in lack? Can you not see that you are the hope of the world?
I lament for you! You have whored yourself out to the highest bidder and the poor suffer for it.
Come now friends, let us unite, let us work as one, let us push back this darkness together.
Or are you all that matters? Can you not lay down your expensive cloak so that you may hug the dirty?
Oh God, oh God, Oh God!
Remove from me my very breath. I am ashamed to share the same blood as my brethren.
How may I call a man my brother when he would turn his back on injustice? How may I live a life of love in a world that considers it weakness? Take this mantle from my shoulders. Take these words from my lips. Let this responsibility pass to another. For I am filled with bitter lament for my brothers. And I am filled with judgement against them.
I do not count myself better. I do not count myself more righteous than they. I count myself wretched for seeing what we have become.
Though you outline the strategy, I have little hope that many will heed the call. For who among these mammon worshippers would aspire to live lives of selfless generosity?
My anguish is full. My mourning constant. My laughter fleeting. For if they who suffer so are my brethren and I am powerless to do naught but watch them suffer then their suffering is mine.
For what does it profit me to be full of God yet not full of love. What does it profit me to full of the councilor yet void of compassion? What does it profit me to have the mind of Christ yet ignorant of the enemy’s vices?
Come brethren! Come sisters!
Let us throw down this yoke of materialism that so constrains us. Come, let us together shine the light of love upon the darkest places. Let us be one as God, the angels and the witnesses are one.
Do you not know that a divided house cannot stand? Do you not know that a divisive spirit hates unity?
I groan for you to come out from the upper rooms. You have made the upper room your church and turned your back on all who are outside your doors.
You have said: ‘I will minister to the few who come to me. For my anointing shall draw them.’
Yet Jesus has said: ‘Go out into the world! Go! Go! Go!’
Oh Father!
Restore within me some small hope for your body. That we would be more than squabbling fools, each building his own house upon the sand of stubborn personal ambition.
I lament for this divide body. I lament. I weep. I cry for unity.
The young men run from the tyranny of the old and start their own churches. And each says: ‘When my ministry is big enough, we shall feed the poor.’
But we do not have time. The hourglass does not wait for us. Come, let us be THE church. Let us work together NOW!
But no.
You are more concerned with your suit and your beard and your stage backdrop than you are about hungry children. God has patience with you but I weep because of you. You talk about money for the kingdom but none goes to the poor. You are as wicked as the tyrant you ran from.”
Gatherer appears to my right. Breakthrough to my left.
Gatherer:
“Take heart son of sorrow.”
Breakthrough:
“Take heart son of obedience.”
Me:
“There is only anguish in this heart. Obedience is enough for me. This heart longs for eternal sleep so that it may no longer dwell upon the selfishness of man. Fullness of love is a curse in this realm. For to love the afflicted and the hungry when you cannot feed them all is hell. And to love the workers who hide in their wealth is hell.
No. I will not take heart. But I will be obedient.
This sorrow permeates my very spirit. I am sickened by it. That so powerful a body would be so lazy as to stand by and let billions be ravaged by darkness?
Oh God my God. Oh God. Oh God.
From my deep I call to yours!
Send the money. Send the workers.
Have I not proven myself faithful through every fire of this great prostitute who sells herself so cheaply?
Have I not served your bride even when she stole from the poor for her own glory?
Send the money. Send the workers. Let me use the hirelings if the shepherds will not come.
You great prostitute. I gave you my heart and you devoured it. You selfish, thieving abomination. You care nothing for the poor. I am ashamed of myself for ever serving you. I cannot judge you but I judge myself and regret loving you.
Do not tell me to take heart brothers.
My heart is rend asunder.”
Gatherer:
“Obedience is enough son of sorrow. For to do as the Son commands is to love Him. But He loves you without condition and without the need for your love. Can you do the same? Can you love His bride without needing their obedience or their love?”
Me:
“The knowledge of His love and my responsibility to love as He loves is one thing. For I may say with my lips ‘I love you’. But to truly love from this torn heart is to ask a man with fresh, barely healed wounds to take another whipping. Can you not see the sensitive wounds upon my heart? Can you not see that I have loved His bride dearly? Look at these cuts and tears and bruises. Look upon the nail marks of spiritual fathers who would rip and scratch. Look at the false promises of those with money.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
I will be obedient to the Son as Courier and I wish to love again without condition. But this heart is finished. I either need a new one or a miracle.”
Breakthrough:
“The seven shall heal what is broken within you. And you shall heal what is broken within them. And as one you shall heal billions. Take heart son of obedience, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you (plural).”
I wake up.