Just a Dream
“Only time I ever talked to Jesus was outside a bank when we’d stop and say a prayer that we wouldn’t get shot.” - Former Bank Robber
Prison Bible study could be crazy good or sometimes, just crazy entertaining. It was like an AA meeting where everybody shows up drunk and determined to share. Sitting knee to knee in a storage closet, you never knew who would be in attendance or what they might say.
One of my all-time favorites was the leader of a bank robbery gang who, before every robbery, made his crew place their guns on the floor and say a quick prayer that they wouldn’t get shot. The incongruity was lost on him because he didn’t know the first thing about Jesus until he was converted in prison. But years before, he had childhood friend whose grandmother made them stand and be prayed over every night before they hit the streets. Even today, it helps me remember that those faithful but thankless little things we do every day may be just the ammunition God uses to save someone later down the road.
They made me quit telling my white collar crime stories, said they were too boring.
I went to Bible study every night and was amazed at the wild fluctuations in attendance. Sometimes it was because of the discussion topic, a few days talking about obedience was guaranteed to thin the crowd. Not to get on a rant but maybe that’s why you don’t hear it from the pulpit much anymore.
There were always people coming and going, some had found new trouble and were hoping God was a genie, and some were skeptics who simply wanted to tell us why we had it all wrong. You know the ones, those guys who wouldn’t believe even if Jesus showed up and made them a personal appeal. He did just that with one of them.
Jim was a long haired ex-hippy who had been a scientist at NASA before getting hooked on meth. One day he was walking to the chow hall and just collapsed. If you know anything about healthcare in prison, you know I don’t exaggerate when I say he survived only through divine intervention. They got him out of the prison and rushed him to the hospital but he’d had a “widow maker heart attack” which is near complete blockage of one of the heart’s main artery’s. He died in the ambulance. At the hospital, they miraculously brought him back from the dead.
He was released a couple weeks later and incredulously was is in the closet waiting when I got to Bible study the next night. With an incredible story. He told me he remembered having a sharp pain in his chest and then falling down, but nothing else until he woke up in a dark room standing in front of a high judges bench. He said, “I could make out three people sitting behind it staring at me, their faces shrouded in darkness.” Then he heard a loud voice proclaim, Who will stand for this man? Chills ran down my spine when he said, “Nobody said a word…….nothing!” Again a voice thundered, Who will stand for this man? He whispered, “Bro, I was standing there in front of the world and there was nothing but this awful silence……then suddenly I woke up,”.
When I heard his story I thought, “That’s it for him, he’ll pledge his life to Jesus and be in church every time the doors open.” I was wrong. Initially, he came to Bible study every night and seemed to be truly seeking but within weeks he just sort of faded away. I was flabbergasted. I asked him, “Jim, your experience corresponds so closely to what the Bible says. The Trinity of God standing in judgment and your need for a substitute………You don’t see the connection?” He smiled at my simplemindedness and said, “C’mon man, it was just a dream.”
It seemed the further Jim got from his dream, the fainter and less real it seemed to him. Things got blurry.
I know how it feels. For me, things can go from clear to blurry at the drop of a hat. Here’s how it usually works with me: I trust God to do something, it doesn’t immediately, and suddenly I’m wondering where we got our wires crossed. Everything’s becomes a blur and pretty soon I’m stumbling around thinking God’s trying to trick me. It’s craziness!
Not Joseph though. This week a couple thousand years ago Joseph was at the end of a long walk of faith. Nine months before, an angel had come to him and told him God wanted him to go ahead and marry his fiancé, who was already pregnant with someone else’s child. Told him in a dream no less. Can you imagine? I shudder to think what kind of havoc my mind would play if I followed a life plan based on a dream. Talk about blurry.
The Bible tells us that Joseph obeyed the Angel from his dream but I’d be willing to bet he had some serious struggles over the next nine months. It would have been easy for things to get seriously blurry. It’s one of the devils favorite tricks; getting us to forget the past and doubt the future.
This was a life altering decision for Joseph. He was a direct descendent of King David, and while they may not have been kings anymore, it was still a royal bloodline to the Jewish people. So there was that social pressure to contend with. Plus, in a small town like Nazareth, he was signing up to be the topic of town gossip for years to come. What would you tell your mother and father? Your friends? Would anybody believe that an Angel told you in a dream that your new wife was carrying God’s child? Makes my head spin just writing it.
Somehow, Joseph obeyed, even though I suspect that pretty regularly you could find him out behind the barn muttering to himself. But he persevered, even when things got blindingly blurry. Those old saints amaze me, from Biblical hero’s to Bonhoeffer, their stubborn obedience and uncompromising faith were remarkable. But the truth is, I know they struggled because they were human, and it gives me a lot of hope. Because even though I might be losing the battle today, that doesn’t mean that someday someone won’t speak of my obedience and faith with a ting of wonder in their voice.
As for Joseph, one day I hope to ask him about all this, and in my imagination, it goes something like this:
After I’ve been in Heaven for a while, I happen across this guy making the most exquisite cabinetry. I sit down and we get to talking about our time back on Earth. He’s a long time resident and I’m sorta new but I commence to telling him about my terrible struggles in those last days of Earth when everywhere you looked, the devil seemed to be winning. I imagine him pausing, looking at me and smiling, “You think that was tough, let me tell you about the time I was called to be God’s stepfather.”
This Christmas (and the rest of the time), lets be like Joseph not Jim.
