The Price of Obedience

God has graciously given me a pop quiz, reminding me that what I know is of little value if I do not apply it.

I have learned so much over the years about the Bible, God, and how he interacts in this world, but there is this disconnect that happens in my life. I forget that these truths are not just some type of great spiritual abstraction. I forget that if they are to have any value they have to be lived out here and now, in this world, in this place, and before witnesses.

But even more importantly, I forget that these truths can only be witnessed if they are lived.

And who is going to live them if those of us who declare them are not willing to submit their lives to that cause?

We live in a world that has tried hijack our faith and bastardize the promises of our God. We are told that all good things come to those who serve him, those follow the rules, and have enough faith. Blessings and abundance will spring forth, we will never know suffering, pain will never touch us, respect and honor is ours for the taking.

You have heard it. I know you have. God has given you a desire and dream, and he wants nothing more than for you to have the desires he has placed in your heart. You deserve it, you are a child of the king, you will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, and your life will be fountain of joy!

But you do know what? The world doesn’t need to see more happy people being happy. Really. We already know that the people with the great houses, fabulous cars, and dream jobs are happy. Everyone gets this formula, it is sold to us in every TV ad and magazine article out there. Follow your passion, chase your dream, get enough money, have the perfect family, and make the right friends and your life will be nothing short of fulfilling and blissful.

But what about everyone else? What about those of us with the crap jobs, dysfunctional families, living pay check to pay check, and just struggling to keep breathing under the pressures of this world? What about those of us doing everything right and our lives are imploding? What about us? Is there no joy for us? No hope? No blessings spilling from the heavens despite our best efforts? What about our broken hearts that were shattered because we dared to dream, dared to hope, and dared to love? Only to broken against the reality that we live in fallen world filled with others just as broken as we have ever been? Does God not love us? Is this the price of obedience?

Yes! A thousand times, yes!

Pain is the price of obedience. For you cannot love a broken world without being broken. You cannot have dreams shattered if you never dare to dream. You cannot hurt for the pains of another if you do not open your heart to their wounds and, in turn, to be wounded. You cannot find fulfillment if you do not first empty yourself, and you cannot be disappointed if you do not dare to hope.

And all of this will happen if you step out and seek the Father’s heart for your life. You will dream big dreams, you know great hopes, and you will love with a depth that defies human understanding. And the world will seek to destroy you for daring such great things. It will take the ones you love from you, it will shred your most precious dream, and it will shatter your hopes. And God will let it, with no apologies, he will let the world do a tap dance on the graves of all that you buried along the way.

This is the test. Can you still seek him while the fanfare plays? While your enemies rejoice over you demise? When you can’t see him past the jubilant crowds? Can you trust him when you know it wasn’t just a hope or dream that died, but a part of your heart?

It will be long, cold three days and nights. And you will grieve as you have never grieved before. But can you keep coming back? Can you return to that place where that precious part of you died? Search for evidence that all you have endured wasn’t in vain? Or will you give up? Declare that God is just as dead as the dream you mourn? Or will you come with spices and nard, honoring the fact that you were once given something so precious, refusing to be bitter at its loss?

But, Emily, someone is protesting now, God gave me these hopes and dreams! I deserve to have them! He tells me so! I have it written in his Word. 

And yes, you are so right, but where does it say that any of this comes without a cost?

Show me one Abraham who didn’t put a child on the alter, a David who wasn’t chased out of his homeland, an Elijah who didn’t dine on roadkill, a Jeremiah who wasn’t thrown in a pit, a Hosea who wasn’t married to a whore, a Mary who wasn’t accused of being a slut, a Paul who was not stoned and left for dead, or Christ who did not die on a cross. If you can, I will show you someone whose testimony of God’s grace and mercy is meaningless. I will show you someone who never knew what it was to walk in true faith, to rely fully on the provision and protection of God’s love. I will show you someone who will might pay beautiful lip service to my God but never dared to follow him into the wilds. I will show you someone’s who faith was not purified and tempered in the furnace of life.

Above all, I will show you someone who never knew the beauty and glory of resurrection, and this is the good news we are to bring to the world – our God is greater than any death we may ever experience. And what better way to declare this message than to live it? To place our lives in his hands, fully aware of what it will cost, and yet still declaring the truth of his love. A love that is not defeated in lives of chaos and disappointment, but a love the will shine forth in the resurrection and vindication of his children! This is the message of hope the world needs, and it can only be witnessed if we are willing to live it.

Deep Theological Ponderings Or How to Avoid Embarrassing Situations at the Coffeehouse

Recently, I wrote about the the cost of dreaming big. The response to that post was overwhelming. Friends from literally all over the world checked in on me, others wrote to tell me what a relief it was to discover that they are not alone, and a few just sat down in the ashes a lamented life with me. In the midst of all the love and support, one question kept emerging – how do you trust God when it seems like everything in this world is out to get you?

Now this is the type of question that inspires two distinct reactions:

1: Maniacal laughter that will not only get you strange looks, but asked to leave the coffee shop by some fearful eyed teenager clutching a cell phone which I am pretty sure had 911 already cued up. (If you encounter this situation, do not, I repeat, DO NOT giggle and say, “It’s alright. I just forgot to take my meds.” Just leave and save everyone some awkward moments.)

2. Deep theological ponderings.

Either reaction can occur independently, in succession, or concurrently depending on a number of factors not excluding barometric pressure and the strength of the US dollar.

And since I cannot take all of you to the coffee shop for a demonstration of the first reaction, I shall resign myself to sharing some of those deep theological ponderings. You can decide what they are worth.

Like most questions, I believe the answer is in the question, and it is quite simple. The world is out to get you.

But did you catch that? The WORLD is out to get you. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating paranoia or launching a counter attack. I am just stating fact as I see it, but first we have to define what do we mean by the word “world”? Obviously, I am not referring to the planet earth, and I am not talking about millions of people in China actively plotting your demise. Heck, I am not even talking about that idiot who cut you off in traffic this morning. Don’t kid yourself, he wasn’t thinking about you and he couldn’t have cared less about who you are. His concern was his life and his life alone, you just happened to be in his way.

So what do I mean by the world?

Not to get too deep, but I mean the powers that rule this world. You don’t have to go very far into the Bible to figure out that when Adam and Eve decided to have a little snack, they also relinquished dominion over this realm to the one who served up that tasty little morsel. (John 12:31, John 14:30, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2, and 1 John 5:19). And if you haven’t been paying attention to the news, it might come as a bit of a shock that people do not like outsiders living in their land. In fact, folks can get down hostile towards immigrants and foreigners particularly if they have any level of success in a region where natural born citizens are struggling to survive. So guess where that puts our popularity levels as Christians?

But there is another factor at play here, and one we tend to forget until it smacks us in the face – spiritual forces are manifest through physical beings.

Oh, sure, we get this concept when it is the guy on TV ripping into our faith, we understand it when we are attacked by a stranger on social media, and we are not surprised when our crazy uncle starts going on about religion being the opiate of the masses at Sunday dinner. We expect it, these people don’t share our faith, and it’s a pretty hard thing to wrap your brain around unless you have experienced the awe of it. So you let it go, or maybe you make a comment, but in the end you just accept it as a part of the world we live in and go on because it’s not personal.

But then there are times when things do get personal, when the people you love and depend go stupid and you begin to question the legitimacy of their faith. Evil is no longer an impersonal force, and you know this because you are living with it! The rebellious teen, the thoughtless spouse, the overbearing parent, or the unreliable roommate – any one of them at any time can become a pawn of Satan hell-bent on ruining your life. To make it worse, these were the same people you considered to be conduits of God’s love to you, and somehow our twisted little human brains begin to interpret this as God must have forgotten his obligation to demonstrating his love for you by smiting these sinners.

Now this is the part of being a Christian that can really suck. (Yeah, I said it.) The reason being is that requires somethings called self-discipline, self-awareness, and that other thing that always trips me up, self-control. No one likes to do these things, no one is born naturally good at these things, and no one ever gave another human being an award for practicing these things – matter how hard you had to work it. Even worse? The better you get at doing these things the less people realize how much effort you put into them.

As if that wasn’t enough, there is  only one way you really get to practice the skills need to become proficient at being self-disciplined, self-aware, and self-controlled, and it is having people do everything  in their power to knock you over – mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and yeah, sometimes even physically. It’s called training. It’s learning how to differentiate between the person you love and the behavior that hurt you. Its learning how distinguish between a violation of your preference and principle. It’s realizing that you aren’t the center of the world and the people are often dealing with their own demons, demons that don’t mind taking you out too.

So you have choice, to stop loving, to stop being open, to stop caring enough about others to give the power to hurt you, or to believe that God is bigger than anyone or anything that comes against you. You get to choose to walk in grace and mercy trusting that God can and will bring you through, or to hide your heart and all that you have been given behind the defenses that keep you safe. The thing is if you chose to hide, you are never going to be able to share the love that has been so freely given to you and you will never be able to help anyone walk in freedom while keeping your own heart imprisoned by your fear.

The Cost of Dreaming Big

There is an inherent risk in dreaming big, something no one ever talks about but is unavoidable and devastating, and that is the inevitable reality of disappointment. Now, I am old pro at dreaming big. I have constructed masterpieces whimsy in my mind that would shame Da Vinci. I have woven together grand and glorious schemes out of nothing more than a whisper of hope that make the Sistine Chapel look like a mere coloring book.

And it more than conjecture or what if’s. I can see myself there in the moment. I can feel the texture of the clothing I shall wear as it all comes to fruition. I can smell the air that crackles with the energy of realized potential, and if I am still enough, I can feel the weight of all the toils and heartaches endured to reach that moment roll off my back.

It is the fuel that keeps me going. It is why I do what I do and why I fight so hard to keep moving forward when everything around me tries to hold me back. I need to dream, like I need to breathe and even more than I need the nourishment of food for my dreams are far richer. In my mind it is not a question of if, but rather of when. For me, it has already happened and I am only waiting for that moment when you shall be able to enjoy the dream with me in this reality.

And then there are days like today.

Days when I realize I don’t have a play left. Facts, reality, the truth, whatever you wish to call it, are greater than my dreams and I have to admit that, at least for the moment, I have been defeated.

Days like this aren’t frequent. They are a strange and unfamiliar land, one that I have managed to dodge more times than any human has a right to – a fact I am grateful for, but it does not make it any less painful to be here. Maybe it is my lack of experience with this place that causes me to freeze, to set back and watch the sky fall bit by crumbling bit with nothing more than remorseful resignation.

Days like this make me doubt, not my faith, but my ability to trust God. And yes, there is a difference. For I have all the faith in the world that God is greater than my mind can comprehend. Questioning his power, his holiness, and his sovereignty never crosses my mind. I have faith that when I pray on your behalf that he will move mountains to care for you, to provide for you, and to demonstrate his love for you. Faith is not an issue. Faith is as real to me as gravity, an undeniable and powerful force not be ignored.

But trust? That is another matter.

Trust means that I am willing to believe no matter what the evidence or circumstance says that everything that is will be for my good. That is a harder thing to believe, particularly when the circumstances hurt. And they do hurt when you watch your dream evaporate.

This is where most Christian blog writers would give you some great spiritual insight. Sorry, but today, I have none. It just hurts. And my sadistic little brain keeps running through all the ways that life is unfair, making a tally of all the things that I have sacrificed and balancing against all that I think I have gained. I am involuntarily running down the list of people who have gained so much more and done so much less, and I am trying not to drown in self-pity or get puffed up with sanctimonious outrage that life isn’t fair – that God isn’t fair.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I know all the right Christian answers and I can quote all the appropriate verses for you. And I have lots of people in my life who are willing to quote them back at me, but you know what? When it hurts this bad, all of that is nothing more than salt in a bloody wound, and while I know that everyone means well, it feels like I am being told that my emotions in all this do not matter, like my disappointment and pain should just be swept under the rug and ignored.

I know my dream was unrealistic and that there were too many obstacles standing in the way to ever think that it might be done in this life. I get it, but do you think for one second I would be feeling this way if I did not have faith enough to dream in the first place? If I did not think for one second that my God was strong enough and great enough to accomplish all that I believed could happen? Of course, I did or I would not be facing disappointed now. The question was never faith. It’s not the question now.

The question is can I trust him? My mind started out screaming yes – decreeing it if we want to use the right church vernacular, but after the past few years that scream has become a whisper lost in the storm. For no matter how much I know what the right answer is, my heart is bleeding with the wounds that faith has dealt me, that daring to trust has cost me.

So I turn the pages, find the Psalm that reminds me that I am not alone. There was another who felt this way, another who dared to ask that dreadful question that only the truly brave can ask, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Because sometimes, you don't need answers, you just need to know that you are not alone. 

"Why Did You Deceive Me?" Or Leah's Romance

"What have you done to me? I was in service for Rachel! Why did you deceive me?" Genesis 29:25b

I have never been able to read those words without wondering if Leah could hear them. Was she listening on the other side of the tent curtain waiting to hear her fate? Did Jacob drag her by the arm and shove her in Laban's face as demanded to know the answers? Could she even breathe as her hopes of love and romance were cast aside in favor of her sister's beauty? Did the entire camp see Jacob's anger at having been saddled with her? Did she notice that her name was never spoken by her husband or her father? Only Rachel's?

If you don't know the story, here's a quick overview. Laban had two daughters, Leah and Rachel. Leah was the oldest. We don't know much about her only that she had "weak eyes" and that was not Jacob's choice for a bride. But Rachel, now she was something special. Jacob fell for her and he fell hard, so hard that he was willing to work seven years for Laban just for the right to have her as his bride. When the seven years had been fulfilled, Jacob demanded that Laban uphold his end of the bargain, but on the wedding night, Laban snuck Leah into Jacob's tent instead of Rachel. The next morning Jacob discovered what had been done and was furious, but Laban just used Jacob's despair as way to weasel seven more years of work out of Jacob in exchange for the bride he truly desired.

The new terms were quickly struck, and Leah was granted a full week with her new husband before he was wed to Rachel. I cannot even imagine what that week must have been like for her. Instead of the proud new groom delighting in his new wife, she got to spend it with an man who was anticipating a life with another woman. (And I think I have bad days.)

But that week was just the beginning. For as the Bible specifically records, Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah. (Genesis 29:30).

We see Leah's misery in the names of her children, children that Bible says were given to her because God saw that she was unloved. Reuben means "The Lord has seen my affliction" or "Now my husband will love me", Simeon means "This is because the Lord heard that I was unloved and has given me this one also", Levi means "This time my husband will become attached to me for I have borne him three sons", and Judah means "This time I will praise the Lord." The hope in those words is heart breaking when you know that it will never be. Jacob will always love Rachel, and there is nothing that Leah can do to win his heart. Nothing she ever does will be good enough or amazing enough to be loved in the way that all women wish to be adored, and you can see the cycle of hope and shattered dreams breaking her until she becomes a footnote in her own story.

To this day, the romance of Jacob and Rachel is celebrated. Jacob's devotion and patience in his service for Rachel is lauded and Laban's trickery is condemned, but who remembers Leah as more than an obstacle to true love?

Some of the Rabbis attempted to restore some of Leah's honor, devising a tale in which she is heroine of faith. In their story Leah is frightened that she may end up married to Jacob's coarser older brother Esau, and she prays that she might be saved from such a fate. Her prayers are so powerful that she is given Jacob as a husband, instead. Later, out of concern for her sister she is said to have prayed that she not be allowed to give birth to another son lest her sister be displaced, and so the baby she was carrying became daughter, Dinah. It is a sweet tale, but stands at odds with the Biblical text.

For once, Leah's son Reuben found mandrakes, a plant believed to aid in conception. Rachel who was still barren at the time, begged her sister for them. Leah's response drips with bitterness, "Was it not enough for you to take away my husband, that you would also take my son's mandrakes?" (Genesis 30:15). Rachel uses the one ploy she has to get her way, she barters a night in their husband's bed in exchange for the mandrakes.

She informs Jacob of this with little love or hope of receiving any in return, "You are to sleep with me, for I have hired you with my son's mandrakes." (Genesis 30:16). Listen to her words, "I have hired you." Gone is the starry eyed girl, and her place is a woman who has made bitter peace with her situation. Children are her consolation, and that is all that Jacob can provide. The names of her next two sons are Issachar and Zebulun, "My reward" and "My gift".

It is hard to study Leah's story. It is not one of victory or triumph. It is about a woman who is stuck in the most untenable of positions anyone could imagine. God does not give her the love she desires, he does not change her circumstance, or intervene in some miraculous way. He leaves there as she struggles to cope with the harsh realities of her life.  

But just because it is a hard story, it does not mean that is should be avoided nor should Leah be forgotten for she has much to teach us. She began her journey full of optimism and hope. She had dreams of being loved, and she prayed that God would grant her a request so simple that many of us believe it a fundamental human right. For what kind of God would deny us love? Surely, it is the just reward for any of us who believe in him, who serve him, who do as we have been commanded, and honor those who declared we should honor? Would it not be anything short of cruelty to deny us the one thing that human heart demands to experience happiness? Leah teaches us that our suppositions about God are not always true, and she reminds that his intents often exceed our happiness and fulfillment. Sometimes God's plans include our suffering and the sacrifice of our dreams.

Oh, it hurts. I know how much it hurts as time and time again he has asked that I watch as others receive the very things that I have asked him to grant me. I have witnessed blessing poured out on those who do not honor him as I do, and good gifts given to some who have never sacrificed on his behalf. And in that moment, I am confronted with a choice. Do I indulge my petty nature or do I try to see the grander purposes that God may have in mind for me? For my children? For this world? For eternity? Can I play a part or will I be consigned to the sidelines, a footnote in my own story, because I allowed my sense of entitlement to steal what joy I have been given?

See, Leah was not totally forgotten. Each time she was given a son, the Bible declares it because God heard her, he remembered her, and heeded her. He knew what she was suffering and he gave her good gifts in the midst of her pain, even if he did not obliterate the cause of that pain. Leah finally got it. It took her years, maybe even decades, but she finally understood that she had a choice to be keep hoping for what she was never destined to have and live in the agony of disappointed hope or to rejoice over what she had been given. She declares as much in the names she gave to her children.

And I wonder what matters more to her now, that even her memory is clouded by the name of her sister or that her children would become the kings and priests of the nation, that her sons would be the father's of a people through which God would bless the whole world, and that the salvation of all humanity can be traced back to time when she was nothing more than a pawn? As a mother, I can only imagine that she would celebrate the triumphs of her children even at the expense of her own dreams and the fleeting happiness she thought needed. Leah's romance was not with Jacob, it was with a God who destined her to participate in a legacy greater than the love of any one man could have ever been.

"But They Are All Dead!" - Laments of Deferred Hope

“But they are all dead!” I wailed as yet another friend pointed me to Hebrews 11 in an attempt to encourage me during a season of great frustration of singleness.

“Of course, they are all dead they lived during Bible times.” She said looking rather befuddled.

“No, I mean they all died before anything God promised them happened – even Moses died right before he got to step foot in the Promise Land.” I whined. “You know what that’s like? That’s like sitting in the parking lot while your friends spend the day in Disney World. Way to go, God, what an awesome way to treat your chosen hero. Guess that’s as good as it gets when you are serving God.”

It was at this point my friend decided to abandon any attempts at consoling and backed away slowly. She later confessed that she was pretty certain that it was going to lightening the next time I opened my mouth, and she didn’t have any intentions of being anywhere near the strike zone. (I hear that quite frequently believe it or not.)

Now for those of you who have lived a beautifully blessed life, I am sure that my laments sound a little melodramatic and bordering on blasphemous, but follow me on this one. You really need to understand, maybe not for yourself, but at some point in your life you are going to have a friend who feels this way. And if you have ever felt like this towards God, we have group meetings at my house on the second Tuesday of the fifth week next month.

Nothing hurts more than waiting on a dream. Solomon even said so, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but the fulfillment of a desire is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12). I prefer Stephen King’s paraphrase from the Shawshank Redemption, “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man (or woman) insane.”

The only thing worse than hope is hope that is rooted in a God given desire. Whether it is the dream of marriage, a thriving ministry, publishing that next book, or having a home to call your own, all of it hurts when it seems like it is happening for everyone but you. And it isn’t just the not having that kills you, it is the way you begin to feel like everyone else is looking at you, that subtle shift in how they treat you, and the unspoken accusation of why aren’t you good enough to receive God’s blessings.

So you work the steps. You go over your life with a fine tooth comb and you begin looking for some sin that would explain why God is withholding his love. You pray, you fast, you confess even the most minor infractions, and you cry in frustrated pain and in anger. You volunteer more at church, you start tithing 11% instead of 10, and you begin wondering if you should sponsor a child in Africa to show just how good you really are. And every morning you wake up expecting a miracle, you decree God’s provision and blessing over your life while you brush teeth, and all you have to show for it are toothpaste splatters on the mirror.

That is when the bitterness creeps in. It starts out as disillusionment and frustration, but you know deep down in your heart that anger is starting to take over. Oh, you fight it down, push it away, and do your best to deny that you are capable of such an unholy emotion, but you are beginning to feel like ticking time bomb. Soon all your prayers are boiled down to one word, “Why?”

“Why, God, why me?”

Now this is the part where I am supposed to offer you some holy answer and sacred words of wisdom. They will magically appear on your screen after you close your eyes, chant the Lord’s Prayer, and commit to sending me ten bucks.

Didn’t work? Yeah, I will have to work on that. Really, what did you expect?

The truth is I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows why some prayers get answered and others don’t. I can’t understand why God has allowed so many charlatans to achieve levels of great success and experience such blessing and leaves the rest of us out in the cold. I don’t know why he healed your friend who uses drugs and let my dad die, or why didn’t give my ex a holy zap and save our marriage when I prayed for that while warded off his blows. None it makes sense to me, and if I told you I did I would be lying.

But here is what I do know: God is sovereign, and that means he gets to call all the shots, even the ones I don’t understand. God loves me and he loves you, even when we don’t deserve it. Love will do what is best for us, even when it means disappointment and hurt. Hurt and disappointment does not mean our story is over. It just might mean that we have to be willing to let him write a new one, one we never imagined being the story of our lives.

No one in Hebrews 11 saw the fulfillment of the promise that God gave to them. They all died long before it happened, but they had enough faith to believe that in pursuing the promise they were exactly where God called them to be. They pressed onward even when it all seemed pointless, believing that God was faithful, and even though they didn’t see it happen their kids, their grandkids, and everyone who came after did.

You see, they changed the world by chasing the dreams God had given them and doing so transcended their finite existence. They ceased to be individuals and became a part of the fabric of history. Each of them is remembered not for what they received, but for what they gave – to you, to me, and to everyone who dares to receive the promise of salvation to this day.

And isn’t that what we were called to? To give it all away, including our lives, so that the world might witness his glory and not our own? Sometimes the only thing we have to lay on that altar is our hopes the ones he gave to us. Maybe he will provide a ram caught in the thorns of life, or maybe he will resurrect in a new and unexpected way. I don’t know, but I do know that he is the God of redemption and that includes disappointed hopes and dreams.

Blue Sky Views From The Bottom Of The Well

I have often wondered what did Joseph think when he sat at the bottom of that well, the one his brothers threw him into after he told them his dream. The dream where they would one day bow down before him. What other black thoughts must have followed when he wasted away in the Egyptian prison?

I wonder because I know what it is to think that God has spoken to me, revealed some special thing that was about to happen in my life. The promise of a new tomorrow where for once all things will be as I had hoped that they could be,but always there seems to be dark time where the promise is lost in the reality of miserable moments. Moments where my ability to affect change is swept away from me, where the power is given to another and I must continue to live despite the pain of watching my hopes fade before I ever touched them.

I wonder if Joseph could see the sky in that pit. Did he see the brilliant blue as assurance that God still watched over him or did he feel mockery at its distance? Those years when he was forgotten in a prison did he resent the woman who wrongly accused him or the God who allowed him to be placed there? Were there moments of anger, pain, and confusion? Or was he blissfully faithful that there would be a day when he saw his dream manifest? Did he reason away hope?

Did he think that perhaps he had merely been the victim of misplaced hope? Did he think God a liar? Did he believe that his pride and arrogance caused this catastrophe? Were there days when he regretted placing credence in the images that filled his sleep? Did he weep over the death of dream? Or did he stoically accept his fate, believing that all would be well in the end?

I wish I knew. Maybe if we heard the fights, the inner battles he waged with himself, there would be a clue for those of us who wait for God to move on our behalf. Some instruction of how to handle those times when we sit in a pit listening to our brothers squabble as to whether to kill us or not.

I don't know why dreams often have to die before they can be realized. Sometimes I think it is so that we never mistake this thing that God wants to give us is something we conjured up. Maybe it is so that others will see it truly is God who brought it into being and not the work of human hands.

There is some comfort in that thought, but my faith isn't always that big. If it was, would I mourn the dream? And yet even as I type that last line, I hear the words, "Jesus wept". He wept at the news that his friend had died.

It is a baffling thought really. Jesus wept. I mean, wrap your head around the whole scenario for a moment. God incarnate the one who breathed life into the original man, the God who spoke the universe into existence, the God who knows all things - weeps over the death of a friend, the death of his dream.

And we are God's dream. Each of us is a reflection and product of his desire. His dream of relationship, his dream of passion and revelation. We are his dream.

As Jesus moved towards the grave of a man who was his friend, as you and I hope to one day know him, he saw his dream die. With one amazingly distinct difference, he knew that with a few simple words his friend would walk at his side once more.

His tears never made sense to me, but tonight I think I get it.

As we strive to attain a level of communion with God that allows us to walk in faith, even in the most extreme situations, we are not to be callous to the death of a dream. Grieving over the loss of something we hold dear is not a sign of weakness or even a sign of a lack of faith. It is being human. Indeed, if I may be so bold - it is being God like.

God never asked us to be without emotion. He never demanded that we deny pain. He only asked that we seek him, become conformed to his image as presented through the humanity of Jesus.

There is some debate on how much Jesus realized about his deity while he lived on earth. Some claim that he knew he was God from the moment he was born, others say it was not until he sat in the temple questioning the rabbis. Still others point to his baptism as the moment of revelation. And even if a time can be determined there is still the question of how much did Jesus know? How much of his God consciousness was he able to access in his human form?

I tend to believe it was limited in many ways. That he knew what he needed to know for the moment. To me it makes his time here more - well, human. It makes his knowledge of our experience more intimate, and his tears at Lazarus death less hypocritical. It makes his grief real, and not merely a display. And I have to ask, what did he think as he made his way to the grave of his dream?

At what point, did he know that his words held the power to call a rotting body from the ground? At what point, did Joseph realize it was his God inspired words that pulled him from his captivity? Will I know that moment in my life? Will you know yours?

I really don't know, but I do know that in the mean time it is okay to weep. It is okay to mourn. I am not relinquishing my faith by acknowledging my grief, and should this be a dream that finds resurrection - it will be beyond what I had ever dreamt it could be.