Last night I was in the dream “washing” machine. Dream after dream. Thought after thought. These are three that I thought were relevant.

1-The first dream I found myself avoiding those who had evil thoughts for my life. In my possession, I had the secrets of a world to come on a 9” floppy disk.  (Upon waking my first thought, was my grandson’s digital watch holds more information!) “Detrimental truths” of the goodness of the Lord were upon it. The realities of Christ described.

At first in the dream, I chalked it up to the devil, but soon afterward it struck me that the church was chasing me down. I remember as I was hidden away in the back of a dirty old restaurant, the men at the bar talking about the “scandalous grace” that was being propagated. Despite keeping my head down, one of the pointed to me and said, “he’s the one that has it.” In all the confusion, I was able to run out into the snowy alley and head downtown. I realized I looked as if I had slept on park benches the last few nights. My clothes were heavy and dirty. I made my way into a building of a church. I heard the music and thought to myself, “how life has changed. I do not fit here” I soon heard a sharp voice saying, “he cannot get away with it. How will we control them? He is ruining it for us all.”

I heard the scriptures ring in my head about David trying to wear the armor of Saul and how he could not be himself. The scriptures of Eli and priesthood. Clearly grace is offensive to man.

2-My next dream involved an old friend. In the dream he could not understand why I was going down the path I was going. “Lee, why would you go this way? Do you not know they will catch us?” My response was simply to keep on going. As we walked the miles of wooded paths to get to our next destination, a band of men came upon us. They captured my friend, but somehow missed me. They bound him in ropes and loaded him into a horse drawn cart. “We will take him to the sheriff. He will deal with him.” It was a that point I realized they were a hooded arm of the church, who worked to catch heretics. My friend smiled at me as I looked down from my hidden position. “He loudly yelled, “its going to be all right!”

My friend in real life had never understood my change to a full message of grace. But friendship has a way of changing people!

3-My third dream involved a young man who believed in life. Unfortunately his understanding of life always brought him to the place of arguing with others. Forgetting he was a person of grace and he could walk differently, he continued to alienate those in the church and outside of the church. He began to carry placards and yell at people. I often tried to talk to him, but he would sidestep our conversation. One day he was outside a school, yelling at people. I had walked over from the playground to talk to him. The police showed up while I was walking. Before I got to him, he had jumped through a window to his death, hanging in the ragged edges of broken glass.

I do not see the message of grace needs to be force fed to people.

I am walking through each of these dreams adding process and thought. I know it is completely dealing with the message of grace and all that surrounds it. I am fairly clear on a couple of parts.

• Real grace, when practiced and preached is a threat to religion and the religionists who want to cajole and condemn.
• We are in the midst of a change. Our nation and the nations are about to receive the goodness of the Lord through the unadulterated message of grace.
• Grace is a threat only to those who try to hold on to a message that is not relevant. True grace is always relevant, never old and always gracious.
• Mixture will satisfy (the mixing of grace and the law) the religious but is displeasing to God. (Brings new meaning to the hot/cold scripture in Revelation.)

Have an awesome, grace filled day!