We’re winding down therapy visits with Rehab Without Walls this week and preparing for physical therapy visits from a home health agency beginning next week. We had Susan’s evaluation/discharge conference call with the rehab team today and confirmed the therapists’ opinions that Susan’s lower function since the onset of the bleed puts their aggressive therapy out of reach for now. She benefitted from their care since December and will hopefully be able to have their help in the future.
I had a profound spiritual dream last night, the first I’ve had in quite a while. In it, Susan and I had a sustained series of conflicts with evil characters in a house of horrors type of setting. We had several encounters as we made entry to their realm at various levels and fought with monsters that were cartoonish, yet formidable. When I was in my 20s, I had my first dream of spiritual battle and woke up exhilarated after pounding a demon into oblivion. I was acutely aware that God’s power won the victory and not my own. While I had some satisfaction in knowing I had overcome my flight-or-fight paralysis when the fiend confronted me, I had an even greater fulfillment in witnessing the power of God smash the enemy. God is awesome; and demons who oppose Him don’t stand a chance – it’s not even close. Like Graham Cooke said, “One believer with God is always in the majority.”
Last night’s fitful dream had the same elements of confrontation and overcoming, except with a stronger sense of confidence in God’s power to prevail in spite of the ugly and unpleasant environment. There were lots of them; but somehow I knew we had faced worse before and had triumphed. We were going to be ok. And not only were Sue and I doing battle together (and she in her normal, pre-cancer self), we were the aggressors, entering their realm at various levels in a hillside to defeat them. We also were aware the demons we encountered were sort of impish, not the higher-command types we knew were located elsewhere. At one point when I woke up, I felt God speaking into my spirit to fight, to fight and to not stop fighting, to take the enemy’s territory and not give up any of our own, and to not give the enemy a foothold by sinning. I got the message.
Needless to say, I had a bit to ponder today. Was my dream a picture of Susan’s cancer battle revealed in other terms? Is Susan’s cancer battle just one aspect of a greater war? Putting such questions aside, the dream brings Susan’s cancer journey to light amidst the backdrop of a great unseen battle that is fought on one level by people who pray and wrestle in their spirits with deep things, and fought on another level by spiritual forces of good and evil who clash invisibly to us. God’s Word is vital in helping us understand the context and what’s at stake:
- Jesus says in John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
- Paul says in Ephesians 6:12, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
- With ancient smack-talk, David says to the huge Philistine in 1 Samuel 17:47, “All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give all of you into our hands."
Truths like these are enlightening for believers. They’re encouraging to me when I consider our situation, the assault against our family, our relationship in the Body of Christ, and the life-and-death battle we’re fighting. For now, I consider last night’s dream another aspect of the mystery of our journey. There is so much we don’t know, and so much we cannot control. I believe hidden things will be revealed as we go along. Ultimately, perhaps we’ll receive a full understanding of our part in God’s great scheme when we get to Heaven – but maybe we’ll be so engrossed with the Lord it won’t even matter.
On the note of mystery, I remember Susan’s impressions as she prayed in late 2005 or early 2006 for our church’s ministry to the City of Compton. She felt a heavy threat in her spirit, that the enemy would not easily give up the stronghold of a city he’d held in brokenness for so long. I remember praying also for Compton about that time among church leaders when I had the sense of looking into a deep darkness, not just the dark; darkness with dimensions of depth and space, void of all light. It was darkness with substance, cold and heavy and threatening. Looking back now, and after last night’s dream, were these impressions for Susan and me, relating somehow to her yet-to-be-discovered breast and brain cancers? Or do they bear a larger context for our church or others who get a push-back from an evil one whose days are numbered?
- Peter writes to us in 1 Peter 4:12-13, “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”
For the Christian, there’s often something greater behind an experience, event, or encounter. A scary dream isn’t a nightmare – it’s spiritual warfare, or at least basic training. A life-threatening disease isn’t a death sentence – it’s a life-encounter with the Living God. Death isn’t a horrifying threat – it’s cab fare to our ultimate existence in the presence of God. All of it is a matter of mystery, the concealment of God’s good purposes – and a matter for prayer.
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