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Exchanged Glory IV: A Time for Every Purpose
I will turn and face the darkness, waiting for my Lord’s command. God’s strong angels are around me; I will stand.
In spite of the progress I mentioned in the previous chapter, throughout 1999 my family struggled. I had followed Jesus while growing up in a non-Christian house. I sought Him because I thought it was the right thing to do, and He seemed like the best option available on the planet. I was unprepared when others didn’t see life that way.
As the struggles continued, I fought to keep myself from falling into depression. Though all of my children were great kids by most people’s standards, I had failed to give them the one thing I valued most, an exciting sold out relationship with Jesus. As I watched them become enticed by the lure of the world, I wasn’t even sure if they were going to end up following Him at all.
When I was younger, my desire had been to conquer darkness with the good news of Christ. Now, it looked like the darkness was conquering my children – and through them conquering me.
I felt like running from the draining battle. One day as I considered my growing disillusionment, I stood in my yard facing the center of the town in which I lived. I spoke to the Lord and rededicated my life to Him. I told Him I was totally available to do whatever He wanted, even if it crushed me. Then I addressed the demonic forces attacking us and told them I wasn’t going to back down.
A few months later, a couple in our church held a youth outreach at their house. I was at my home when we received a phone call that the get-together was having trouble. The kids weren’t showing much interest. I felt the devil pressing his lies on me, “I own this town, and I’m going to take your children.” I turned to the Lord in prayer, and He encouraged me as I wrote this song:
When the walls begin to crumble, demons breaking down the gate
When my heart begins to tremble, saying, “Just escape.”
I will turn and face the darkness, waiting for my Lord’s command
God’s strong angels are around me; I will stand
Stand in the struggle; stay in the fight
Satan’s cruel darkness melts in the light
Stand in this hour for all God’s planned
Love overcomes fear. Rise up and stand!
We made it through 1999, but by the time the year 2000 came, my wife and I could tell that serious trouble was close at hand. Situations were developing that we suspected would lead to long term damage if God didn’t step in.
My wife suggested that we fast one meal a week, and we made that a part of our regular schedule. We asked God to do whatever was necessary. We realized He might allow some pain to come, but if it brought healthy change, it would be worth the trouble.
Shortly after we started fasting, difficulties did show up. If we hadn’t been praying, it would have been scary. Fortunately, we knew that God was working. He loves to answer the prayers of His people.
From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I'll do it. That's how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I'll do. …
(John 14:13-14, The Message)
When we give ourselves to following Jesus, He comes to us by His Spirit and helps us to pray. We join in His burdens, and He jumps into action and gives us whatever we request along the lines of Who He is and what He is doing. It isn’t a magical incantation. It is participating in His work (John 5:19).
My experiences as a parent taught me a simple lesson: if I can’t pray, I can’t parent, preach, or do much of anything else.
Near the middle of the year 2000 I had the following dream.
I was Indiana Jones. I was afraid that someone had stolen my credit card and was using it, but when I looked in my wallet, I saw that I had three credit cards. Then, a man and I were running from a person who was chasing me. We ran into a cage made out of razor wire, and I couldn’t escape. I cried out, threw myself against the razor wire, and wanted to die. Others were in the cage with me, and they were reaching out to me.
My best guess at an interpretation was something along the lines of: I was a man of action (Indian Jones). I would go through a time in which it looked like I had lost my favor with God (I thought someone had stolen my credit card – I couldn’t take advantage of the credit Christ had earned for me). In reality, I had an abundance of favor with God (three credit cards). At some point, a time of trial would come that was so painful that I would want to die (razor wire cage – wanted to die). I wouldn’t be alone, however. The man running with me was Jesus; the others reaching out to me in the cage were His people.
I wrote some thoughts about the dream in my dream book, hoping that it was a picture of a tough time from my past. I didn’t want to go through it in the future.
The next day seemed to be just the opposite of what the dream showed. My family came together in a way we hadn’t for years. I was thrilled. This was the sort of change we had been praying for.
When we finished, the reality of the situation hit me more clearly. Though my family had made progress, I hadn’t. My heart still contained the growing frustration and anger I had been burying for years. In fact, the reconciliation we had just experienced was another example of what I couldn’t handle. I had let people speak their hearts, but I hadn’t spoken mine. It always seemed to be that way. Everyone expected me to absorb the harmful energy of those around me, and I couldn’t react.
It was tearing me apart. In the past, I had always been able to keep my distance from anyone who might stir up my anger, but I cared too much about my children to abandon them like that. So I had to take in what they brought without letting it blow back on them. I felt like I couldn’t win. It was as if I had to either remain quiet and destroy myself or speak out and harm the people I loved.
There seemed to be no good answers, and that added to the growing resentment in my heart. I was trapped in a world where people dumped their garbage on me, and then they felt better, but I was already chin-deep in the stuff myself. I was dealing with my own overwhelming issues. I wondered why I was being asked to take on more when I already couldn’t handle what I already had.
I knew that something within my heart had been clamoring for attention since childhood. It now seemed clear that if I didn’t face up to it soon, it would explode. I had been holding off taking the gamble of getting in touch with my feelings, because doing so seemed too dangerous. But for the sake of my family, I now felt I had a good enough excuse to accept the risk. In order to try to find a half way point between their world and mine, I would let go of the restraining order on my inner life.
I wasn’t sure where that would lead me. It had rarely gone well in the past. I shared in the second book of this series how I had spent an entire year facing my anger issues on my job with limited success.[57] Then it was losing control of my anger for three seconds that had led to a number of our problems over the past year and a half. I could remember more than enough bad experiences to motivate me to stay away from taking this chance.
Still, the subjective voice of God seemed to be telling me that it was time to give it another try. When I started to write down dreams in 1998, my first dream showed all of my children standing in a forest that was burning down around them. Some of them were blissfully ignorant of what was happening, so I ran in and did whatever I could to bring each of them out.
The forest was symbolic for the difficulties of the world (think of the saying, “We’re not out of the woods yet”). Fire was symbolic for the dangers of the world. My children didn’t understand the spiritual forces that threatened them, and God was calling me to step in and help.
I now suspected that it was time to do what the dream showed me doing, to run into the danger so that I could better reach out. I would get in touch with my emotions in the hope of finding some common ground between me and them.
It was scary. I had a good deal of resentment and rebellion that were just waiting to burst onto the scene. They had been locked up and quarantined for so long that I had no idea what they would do once I opened the door. The prophecy I mentioned in Chapter Ten had said, however, that I would take some steps of faith. I hoped that this was one of them.
The dream about the razor wire cage pictured me as Indiana Jones, a man who was an expert at escaping difficult situations. I didn’t understand that symbol at the time, but I now believe God was telling me that I would be able to handle what was about to happen. Indiana Jones was an expert at making his way through danger. The person chasing me in the dream was symbolic for the darkness in my heart. As the song I had written said, I was going to stop running, turn around, and face the darkness.
My Heavenly Father had taught me how to hear Him in objective and subjective ways, and now I had to trust Him to guide me into an area in which I had been largely clueless for forty-three years. I knew He had saved me a thousand times before, and through Christ I had an account in heaven (three credit cards in my wallet). He would save me again, even if I experienced whatever was symbolized by that razor wire cage.
I was about to, for the first time, let my emotions claw their way to the surface and pull me down into a demonic slave pit. It was time to say in effect, “I’m Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And you are …?”[58]
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