peace . love . joy

Last night, I dreamt I was entering my hotel room, wherever it is. And as I approached the door to the room, there was a great champagne-coloured sofa sitting right smack in the middle of the doorway such that one must climb onto it in order to get into the room itself. Inside, there was a pair of dark green simple wooden framed chairs, a pair of plush champagne armchairs, and another pair of deep maroon plush armchairs (though not as classy as the champagne ones), two potted plants, a standing golden lamp, a fireplace, and a queen-sized bed resting on its golden frame complete with white bed linen, two pillows and a pink-ish quilt with ornate shimmery embroidery. Immediately, I set about my task (which seemed apparent to me in my dream, though no one told me I had to) of re-arranging the furniture to make it more live-able as everything was in a mess! A man was present, and also a family member or friend, though I could not see her face, I felt I knew her. These two were in the room, the man dishing out advice and instruction about where each furniture should be, and how I must consider the other pieces as I moved a single furniture, the girl just being there. I could not see the man, but I could see the girl. And as I was re-arranging things, new furniture appeared where there once was none, and old ones disappeared! As such, my job of re-arranging was never completed.

Accepting God as our Lord and Master, Jesus as our Saviour and Friend, the Holy Ghost as our conscience and guide, is quite like re-arranging the furniture in a room.

Your life, your character, your being is the room, equipped with some pieces of furniture already present. As you lived apart from the knowledge of God, you arrange the pieces yourself, under the influence of others you come to interact with.
But then, once God comes into your life, everything changes, whether abruptly and suddenly, or gradually and almost unnoticeably.

No one can remain the same in a relationship with the good Lord, because what we were, our personalities, our tendencies and inclinations, are not the same as God's. Our purposes and viewpoints, our hearts' desires are not the same as God's. And upon entering that sacred and fragile relationship, we cannot help but be moulded by the Father's great love and grace and glory and forgiveness and mercy and honour and majesty. Perhaps "cannot help" is the wrong phrase, but rather, "must" would be a better word, for what our sinful nature desired was not, is not, and never will be compatible with what God desires.

We change for the Lord. We are changed by the Lord for the Lord.

He adds new things, new furniture, to our knowledge, to our beings, to our rooms and takes away others. He causes some rooms to diminish in size and others to be stretched.
We are shaped into beings that more and more resemble the Father, not His disciples, not His Old Testament heroes and prophets and seers, but God Himself.

Dear ones, I am being taught that the past can sometimes keep you captive, but for this instance, I think it not captive, but the route to freedom. Look back, reflect.
How has the Lord changed you?
How has He urged and encouraged and disciplined you?
And how have you responded?

It all boils down to the same few questions one must address daily, indeed every moment.
Do you know those vital questions that demand answers that are lived and not merely uttered?

' Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.
They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.

But that is not the way you learned Christ!
-- assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.'

~ Ephesians 4: 17 - 24 (paragraphing added)