I woke up this morning scared, confused, uncertain and afraid. Not afraid of something bad happening or having a nightmare from a scary movie I saw right before I went to bed. It was a deeper anxious kind of fear. One that doesn't come from being scared of something that is seen but from something that unseen. Something spiritual, I don't really now how to explain it...I guess I can just say how it felt and what was seen. It was almost a warning or a vision about my brother. Now, I know it sounds a little crazy, but the dream seemed real in a way, like something warning me. I don't experience this sort of thing very often and for the most part by the time I wake up I can't remember anything I dreamt about anyway. This time was very different. Growing up, I was always told by my Grandmother that sometimes when you dream that is how God chooses to speak to you when your to busy to listen throughout the day. So, I had to take those words of wisdom and continue to discover what it was that God was trying to say to me or show me. The dream started by me entering a familiar house which belonged to my brother. Now, when you start to recall dreams they tend to start in the destination or what you remember is mostly facts and not so much details or how it was you arrived there, you're just there. so I'm in my brother house and my Dad was there and he had this look on his face that I had never seen before. A look of sadness, yet a look of confusion. I walk into my brothers room wondering where he is. His house is not that big. I call to him and no response, just silence...I look over at my Dad again, nothing from him. As my heart starts to beat faster and faster I arrive at where my brother is lying and nothing...no movement, no sounds, no breath...I yell again my brother name as I grab him, I hear in the background my Dad saying, "he is dead leave him alone." I'm holding my brother in my hands and it doesn't seems that he is dead, it just seems like he is sleeping almost in a coma. "No...no"... I yelled...just then I begun to whisper...Romans 4:17...over and over...Romans 4:17...It was almost as if I needed to remember it so that when I did wake up it could somehow be the answer or the missing piece to my dream. In fact, it was! "...He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed-the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were" (Romans 4:17, NIV). I believe that when you're faced with hard things in life, or heavy emotional things that your heart can't communicate, God chooses to speak to those who have an open heart and an ear to listen through our dreams. I know that my brother is safe physically and that he is not dead physically but, what if what God was trying to communicate to me in this dreams was that my brother is spiritually dead?...I do know that because of my upbringing and my relationship with God through Jesus Christ...that when someone is spiritually dead, that is far worse then when someone is physically dead. Our bodies where made to die, everyday we are dying...the cells that make our body, our hair, nails and skin are all dying everyday. However, the spirit that is place inside of our being will live forever...I wonder, how many times in my own life journey or in my story have I been dead spiritually? And so, how do you know when your alive, I mean truly spiritually alive? I don't know why God choose to bring that vision or dream to me, maybe my brother was weighting on my heart so much that this was the only way I could see where he was in his own life journey...maybe what it looks like to be spiritually dead is where he is...I don't know? what I do know, is that we were created to be alive in spirit...We were made to dream, to discover, to hope, to love, to have faith, and to be fully alive! But, along the way we experience the things that come with the world we live in...despair and hopelessness, of being lied to or convinced that this is all there is to life. We grow up...we go to school, we get a job that doesn't satisfy, then we get married after being together for far to long and that's are only choice (getting married), because were scared of being alone, we grow old, and then you die!... That is all life is suppose to be!!! You have got to be kidding me...Or is it? I dare to ask this question, What if God truly and passionately loved you so much that he desired for you not only to be alive physically but, more importantly, being alive in Spirit as well? I find myself as Christ follower in a place of living more in the flesh then I would like to admit. Not being in a place where I really feel alive spiritually. But, i know that if want something so bad that you do whatever it takes to get it. the same is true in relationships. It takes work if you want it to be great, same is true with the relationship that God desires to have with you. I don't want to leave on such a low note...but i feel like I need to let these questions set and stir for a well...what I believe to be true is that God does love all of us very much. You, my brother, your brother or sister, your mom and dad...everyone! God desires for us to be fully alive and that has to start in the spirit that He has placed inside all of us. It is a choice. I think that song by Evanescence, says it perfectly. Bring Me to Life, "Wake me up inside, my spirit is sleeping somewhere cold. Frozen inside without your touch, without your love, only you are life among the dead. Breathe into me and make me real. Save me from the nothing I've become. Bring me to life....."Selah-- Do you want to settle for what is the same old thing, or for what everyone else is doing, or what is comfortable and safe with no risk? Or do you what to LIVE? I pray for each and every person that is going to read this blog! Whether you're believer in Christ or not I hope that you will choose to live, not just an ordinary life but one that God has placed in your heart.
