The Initiative Against Dreaming

Note: Oswald's caution is not directed toward dreaming in general, but rather dreaming when one ought to be doing -- "always beware of giving over to mere dreaming when once God has spoken." Oswald has, in fact, extolled the virtues of dreaming in other entries.

Yesterday's Scripture passage adds meaning to today's devotional for me. "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn," Isaiah 60:1-3.

There is an urgency in Isaiah's words. People are wandering about in thick darkness, searching desperately for love, acceptance and a sense of purpose for their lives. They are sitting in the shadow of death. We have the Light. God's glory has broken in upon the darkness for us. All we have to do is walk out into the darkness and shine with the Light that is already present in us.

I have long struggled with the concepts present in John 14: "If you love me, you will obey what I command . . . Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me . . . If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching . . . He who does not love me will not obey my teaching." I have always heard a call to performance in those words, but I am beginning to hear something else.

Oswald wrote: "If you are in love, you do not sit down and dream about the one you love all the time, you go and do something for him." But he also wrote: "Leave Him to be the source of all your dreams and joys and delights." Here's how I'd like to rewrite Oswald's charge for my own life: If you are in love, it is not enough to simply dream about the person from afar. That isn't love, it's a crush. No, love involves an active pursuit of relationship. You want to know the person, be with the person, listen to his voice, understand what makes him tick, and ultimately, walk alongside him in life. He becomes a part of you and you of him. And when the Person with whom you are in love is Jesus Christ, his light shines out from within you, and the fact that he came to bring light to a dark world drives you out into the darkness yourself. Not to blend into it but to draw nations and kings and children and mothers and friends and neighbors to the Brightness of our Dawn.