The following morning I woke up with a start. I sat up in bed,
the late morning sunshine washing out the bedroom with blinding light. Then a gleeful thought crossed my awakening consciousness.
Ha! He didn't do it! I did my part. I prayed and I asked, and He didn't hold His end of the bargain… I was already gloating over how I would rub
this into the face of my religious sucker friends.
Then, another thought crossed my,
now fully awake mind.
Are you so sure…?
The gloating dried up instantly. Nothing in my life leading up to this moment
had adequately – or even remotely! - prepared me for what followed.
Still sitting in bed, I started
remembering what I was dreaming about that night.
In my dream, I was haunted by a
choice I needed to make. It was an
unbearably difficult decision, only I could make, and I tried running away from
it… going from one place to another… trying to forget, avoid, get as far away
as I could… But I couldn’t. Wherever I
went, it followed me. Nobody was going
to make this choice for me. It wasn’t
forced on me. I didn’t feel manipulated
or coerced. It was almost like an invitation, I was free to decline. But, then I would never know what my life
would be like if I had accepted it. The
choice, the invitation was… to take my own life.
I gasped.
Taking my own life was never a
part of my present or future agenda. I
loved my life. But, somehow I knew that
the dream wasn't a matter of swallowing a bunch of pills or any other way
people choose to end their physical life.
Not at all. This was a matter of recognition that my entire life up to
this point has been built and operated on an unquestioning assumption that
there is no God. The time has come for me to examine this assumption and the
implications this examination may carry for the rest of my life.
He who loves his life
loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. John 12:25
Whoever wishes to save
his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Matthew 16:25
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