A Dream

I have noticed that I am vulnerable to insecurity and discouragement when I move locations and have experienced a lot of change in a short amount of time. I have an unrest in me that stirs up parts of me that have been still for a long time. Moving to Kona has definitely been showing evidence of this. 

Within the first couple of days of being at the YWAM base, I had a dream of a wall that was made of thick, white stucco. The words “Repairer of Broken Walls” rolled in my mind over and over as I was seeing this image. The wall had many perfectly circular holes on it that were about one inch across, and all the holes had been previously repaired except for one that still had water pouring through it. I was trying to cover the one open hole with my fingers and hand, but I could not stop the water from flowing through the open hole. As I was trying to stop the flow of water, the picture zoomed out to show a huge dam (like the Hoover Dam). I asked God what was happening, and I felt like God was saying to me that I couldn’t hold back the water on my own. It was silly to keep putting my finger over the hole because the water was too powerful for me to hold back with my own strength. He was conveying to me that I needed to let him take over.

The next day, God led me to the passage Isaiah 58:11-12

The Lord will guide you always;

    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land

    and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

    like a spring whose waters never fail.

Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins

    and will raise up the age-old foundations;

you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,

    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

A week later, I read the following in Ezra 4:4

Then the peoples around them set out to discourage the people of Judah and make them afraid to go on building. 

First Thoughts

Initially, I thought that the waters in my dream had to do with the brokenness of our kids and that I was trying to fix things in them that I couldn’t on my own. While this is certainly true, the Lord began to highlight some attacks that had been thrown at me. I don’t like to pay attention to attacks, but these attacks could not be ignored. Since being in Kona, I have experienced an intense amount of discouragement that has come in many forms. Knowing we are here to bless others, I have had to really fight against thoughts that try to tell me lies about my worth and efficacy. Ezra 4:4 resonated with me so much. My enemy is trying to stop me from building.

I continued reading in Ezra 6.

 In the first year of King Cyrus, the king issued a decree concerning the temple of God in Jerusalem:

Let the temple be rebuilt as a place to present sacrifices, and let its foundations be laid…. The costs are to be paid by the royal treasury. 5 Also, the gold and silver articles of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, are to be returned to their places in the temple in Jerusalem….7 Do not interfere with the work on this temple of God. Let the governor of the Jews and the Jewish elders rebuild this house of God on its site….Their expenses are to be fully paid out of the royal treasury, from the revenues of Trans-Euphrates, so that the work will not stop. 9 Whatever is needed….must be given them daily without fail…

This really hit me. I am not Ezra, and I am not building the temple or  a wall in Jerusalem, but God has highlighted to me that I am the temple of the Holy Spirit. He is repairing me. He is also repairing members of our family. I am seeing that He not only called us as missionaries to bring healing to others and help build them up, but that He also has a large measure of healing our family, including me. We are HIS work and this is HIS mission, so He will provide for our family in every way.

Throughout the next two weeks, I was reading in Haggai and Nehemiah as well. These books of the Bible talk so much about building up God’s places despite what the enemy has destroyed. God never gives up on his territories or people. He continues to rebuild ancient ruins, even those ancient ruins of our own lives.

The Dream Gets Revealed

Going back to my dream. I had been asking God for many, many days what the water represented. He slowly revealed to me through a series of studies and personal events that the waters actually represent my own hurt, brokenness and need. He showed me that I had been trying for a long time to hold myself together, have control, and keep things from falling apart. He was inviting me to let go of all my pain, frustration, self-condemnation and brokenness. When he showed me this, I honestly felt some fear. Losing control, especially with others watching, and allowing myself to fall apart is really daunting. It especially makes me nervous to think that I could fall apart while in a leadership position.

Nevertheless, He is calling me to stop trying to dam up the things he wants out of my life. There are areas of my life that are quite broken. He is asking me to give HIM control and to allow him into those areas of my own life that are hard to give up even if it means that I might look like a mess in the eyes of others. He is asking me to be vulnerable and to trust him to protect me in the ugly, messy process of being healed. He is asking me to lay down my reputation and to trust his opinion of me above the opinion of others. He can only heal me if I let go. I cannot be built up if I never let the old things fall away.

This picture above feels accurate. There are a bunch of people standing and watching something on this bridge or dam (not sure what the structure is). If it falls apart, they might get hurt. If it falls apart, the structure will no longer exist for anything good.

The Old Must Go, The New Must Come

In order for the new to come, I must let the dam be broken. It’s so much like what Jesus talks about in the New Testament. 

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.” Matthew 9:17

I believe Jesus is talking about the traditions of the Pharisees here and challenging them to lay their religious practices aside in order to live the life of mercy He is calling them to. We all have our old ways of doing things, and we are called to let them go. If I want to carry this new season and all of the lessons that Jesus is trying to teach me, I must be rebuilt stronger than before. I must be a vessel that is whole. I must be a new wineskin.

Lesson #5: God wants to heal me, use me and pour good things in me and through me, but I have to release control of my life in order for him to do his work inside of me.