Interpreting Dreams

In this season of unrest, it's helpful to see conflict as a clash of dreams. Mediators and negotiators must be skillful at interpreting dreams in order to find compromise.

The Church's role is a bit different. Our unique contribution is to interpret and introduce God's dream. How can we know God's dream? We study Jesus. Jesus is the clearest image of God we have ever been given. His dream for every situation will include words like 'love', 'dignity', 'forgiveness', 'self-denial', and 'peace-making'.

Once we discern God's dream for a situation, we can look for ways to introduce it. God's will in God's way. That's life with God together for the world.

Witnesses

What was it like to live through 2020? Someday that question will be asked just like some of us have asked about the Great Wars and the Great Depression. We will have lots of stories to tell. And our lives will tell a story too. We are all being changed by the patterns of this year.

The same is true of our life with God. When Jesus says we will be his witnesses (Acts 1:8), he means people will learn about him through our own story. With our lips, we tell of our relationship with him. And with our life, we show how we are being changed by the patterns of his kingdom.

“When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and found out that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were astonished and took note of the fact that these men had been with Jesus.”

— Acts 4:13

Can you see it?

All those side-by-side pictures on social media. How fast can you find what's different? For us who are "in the world but not of it", difference-seeing is an important skill.

What's of God's kingdom? And what's of the world?

Jesus shows us what God's kingdom is like (Parables, the Sermon on the Mount, the Great Commandment, the Great Commission, his own life). The Apostle Paul does too (1 Corinthians 13 and Galatians 5, for example). They draw the contrast so we will do the same in our own time and place. Can you see it?