Painted Dreams: How The World Gets In Our Way

This addressed primarily to myself.  It is a conviction the Lord, which I think may be applicable to the lives of others, especially sincere fellow believers in Christ.  This came to me when I was listening to the Goo Goo Dolls' song "Acoustic #3."

They painted up your secrets
With the lies they told to you
And the least they ever gave you
Was the most you ever knew

And I wonder where these dreams go
When the world gets in your way
What's the point in all this screaming
No one's listening anyway

Why are these hopes inside us from birth?  Where do these dreams go when the world gets in your way?  Are these dreams wrong?  Are they a sick vicarious ploy of a hopeless deistic Creator?  Or do they have purpose?  What's the point?

Sometimes it hurts so bad to watch your expectations and your hope fade farther and farther away; they vaporize in the heat of circumstance and all that you know as reality.  In an attempt to justify the appearance of the failure of your purest hopes, you settle for mediocrity.  Gradually, you cling to the lies, and you allow that which you see to paint over your secrets. 

What are these secrets?  They are your hopes, and more importantly your hope in your hope.  However, as you accept the least others give you, you simultaneously approve that this is the most you will ever know.  You're hope in your hope begins to slide in decadence.  Slowly, the burning embers of desire planted in your heart smolder out and you find yourself just like everyone else.  "Really, these are not lies; this is reality," you tell yourself in soliloquy.  "What is a lie is my hope; isn't it obvious?"  "Look how the world gets in the way!"

Now, you may never say these words, but still you must ask..."Do I live these words?"

Your voice is small and fading
And you hide in here unknown
And your mother loves your father
'Cause she's got nowhere to go

And she wonders where these dreams go
'Cause the world got in her way
What's the point in ever trying
Nothing's changing anyway

How many times do you find yourself leaving a place completely unknown by others?  If you've never thought about this before, I dare you to think!  Are your relationships based on emotional and social survival?  Why do you do what you do?  Why do you go where you go?  What is your reason for pursuing that which you do?  Is it because of your hope or something else?

Take heed to this caveat:  If your hopes and dreams are not the foundation of your purpose, you will find yourself with nowhere to go.  You will lose your hopes if they are not protected!  In your jaded state, you will subsequently lose your true ambition.  You will be castrated of your ability to make a difference in light of your hope.  Your right eye will be gouged out and a hook put in your lip.  Your hair will be cut short in your sleep and the final cords of your vow to your Source destroyed in your sleep.  Now, there is no point in trying to pursue your hopes.  After all, the world got in the way.

They press their lips against you
And you love the lies they say
And I tried so hard to reach you
But you're falling anyway

And you know I see right through you
When the world gets in your way
What's the point in all this screamin'
You're not listening anyway

Imagine now...years later you find yourself in love with the masquerade.  Your purpose is now "secure," but your hopes are secretly nullified with subtleties.  You find yourself smiling for pictures that aren't being taken.  The least that they ever gave you has now become your definition of success, as well as your purpose of being.  Oh yes!  You know the right answers to all the questions.  You sit in the right seats, albeit even the right pew.  You say the right prayers, albeit even alone at home.  Well, goodness you even read the Bible through in a year.  You have purpose.  You have a mission.  You are the embodiment of success.  You are a great person, albeit even a great Christian. 

It is now that the world is truly in your way!  It is you.  It works through you.  It is in everything about you.  The world is corrupted your hopes and vanquished your dreams.  After all, the world is in your way.

Here's the secret that was painted over:  When the world gets in your way, you are see through.  Your hopes and dreams were the only thing that set you apart from the world, especially worldly Christians!  Be worried if you fit right in to the social structure of the world, even in the organization called church.  The emptiness of translucence does not glorify anyone but yourself.  You no longer have your hope and dream to chase.  The world and all the things about it have taken this place.  Slowly.  One day at a time.  One let down at a time.  One broken marriage at a time.  One dishonest church at a time.  One lust at a time.

It is here--null of hope and purpose--that you find yourself clinging to organizations.  You find dependence on a solid structure of rules.  Your security and salvation are based on that which is authored and finished by knowledge and common sense.  Your god has become yourself--your flesh.  You have forfeited the hard walk of binding your individual God-given hopes and dreams to your heart.  In exchange you have bound to your heart a set of earth bound desires.  You are not an individual.  You are a tool.

Galatians 3:3-4, "Are you so foolish?  Having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?  Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain."

Paul is right.  It started off good.  The hopes and dreams of our first love were amazing and beautiful.  However, without the Holy Spirit working in our lives as individuals, the world gets in our way.  We suffer so many things in vain when we sacrifice the various benefits of our hopes, dreams, and faith in exchange for an imaginary good.

Satan is not concerned with organizations.  He has the rights to those; he has intricately designed the deceitful social strata that we know of today as our world.  Satan is concerned with you.  He wants to rob you of your hopes and your dreams.  Your translucence is his victory.  If he can steal from you your personal identity, he has won.  He longs and desires for the world to be in[side] your way. 

Conclusively, one of the two will be true:

(1)  It will either be fighting against you, hating you, and rejecting you.  Assaulting your hopes, dreams, and faith.  Everywhere you turn, it will be there.  Snarling, willing to challenge your character, purpose, and every ounce of your authenticity.  You will learn what it is like to "know the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death" (Philippians 3:10).  You will learn to stand and fight in this war until your hopes and dreams become reality through the return of Christ.  Until that day, the world will always get in your way.

Galatians 3:11b, "The just shall live by faith."
Matthew 11:12b, "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."
I Peter 1:13, "Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

(2)  It will comfort you, love you, and accept you.  Through the easy path of conforming to it, you will find new "hopes," "dreams," and "faith."  Your character, purpose, and autheticity will be anesthetized.  You will learn what it is like to cleave to the acceptance of others through your new, profound knowledge of good and evil.  You will learn what it is like to be a god, whether you believe it or not.  You will learn to sit and become a success in the darkness--in the belief that there is no battle.  Even so, until the day He returns, the world will always be inside your way.

Joshua 24:24-18, "Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth:  and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.  And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house we will serve the LORD.  And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods; for the LORD our God, He it is that brought us up and our fathers our of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed:  and the LORD drove out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land:  therefore will we also serve the LORD; for He is our God."

I Thessalonians 5:5-8, "Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day:  we are not of the night, nor of darkness.  Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.  For they that sleep, sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.  But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation."

My friend, the world will always be in your way.  It is an individual decision to serve God His truth and cling to the hope of the salvation He has promised.  To say America's Christians are not persecuted is a lie.  Those who believe this are asleep and drunk in the deceit of the night.  We are in the heat of the battle for our minds, hopes, dream, purpose, and identity in Christ!  Therefore, stand and fight.  Fight until your hand has frozen to your sword, for our God loves us and will not leave us or forsake us, even unto the end of this world that is presently in our way. 

Usually, I post a Scripture because I believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of the Living God.  However, the topic of which I write is not mentioned in it, and therefore I come to question how men, albeit peers, see themselves as divinely ordained to establish a methodology of restraint towards it.  Yes, I'm sure by now you know what I'm talking about...dating.  So from here on out it's just my own thoughts. Please note that when I mention "rules" I refer to man-made aBiblical statutes; this is not to be misconstrued with the "law", which is a God-inspired set of eternal truths that govern and elucidate upon the operation of all that is real.

Question #1:  Why are there rules?

Response #1:  There are rules because their is a lack of trust in a relationship.  This is not to say the lack of trust is not warranted; merely, this is to say that deficiency and ignorance can hopefully be minimized by assuming a couple variables constant in a highly non-linear, non-homogeneous differential equation of life and ethics.  Primarily, it is the shallowest human attempt to simplify the solution to a problem that we can otherwise not fully explain.

Question #2:  Are "rules" concerning dating Biblical?

Response #2:  No.  The Bible does not mention dating or the concept thereof.  Abstinence before marriage is listed under other concepts such as purity; however, dating is not in and of itself mention in God's Word.

Question #3:  Should Christians be encouraged to date inside the Church?

Response #3:  Yes, they should.  How else is a Christian supposed to yoke himself/herself with a spouse that is considered "equal"?  The more that Christians create rules prohibiting dating amongst believers, the more secular dating will be encouraged.  There are specific authorities ordained inside a believer's life (a.k.a. parents) who were God-given to guide their life-decisions.  One must remember that in the Church we are all brothers and sisters commanded to love and encourage one another; here, God is our spiritual authority and parental figure (not a pastor, priest, or anyother mediator).  It is in the family which we are commanded to honor the directive forces of spiritual authorities; here, our legal guardians (usually our parents) fill this role.  Be wary of the church leadership that attempts to override the parental authority in the family unit or usurp some of the parental authority of God the Father inside of the Body of Christ.  This may very well be a terribly dangerous and hollow philosophy.

In conclusion, it may be in the Christian's best interest to strive to "render unto God that which is God's and unto Caesar that which is Caesar's."  However, be it of note that those things rendered unto God are eternal (e.g., faith, hope, love, etc.) and those things rendered unto Caesar are earthbound (e.g., fear, ambition, and regulation).  Let this be a caveat for those who assume the role of Caesar:  suspending a set of earthbound regulations that are not God-inspired or Scripturally-based conflicts with and inhibits the rendering unto a jealous God that which is rightly His. 

II Samuel 23:9-10

"Next...was Eleazar son of Dodai the Ahohite. As one of the three mighty men, he was with David when they taunted the Philistines gathered at Pas Dammim for battle. Then the men of Israel retreated, but he stood his ground and struck down the Philistines till his hand grew tired and froze to the sword. The Lord brought about a great victory that day. The troops returned to Eleazar, but only to strip the dead."

Ephesians 6:13-14

"Therefore put on the whole armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground...and after you have done everything...to stand...Stand firm..."

A Real Man Stands His Ground:

Standing your ground isn't standing your ground until you find yourself standing after you've already given everything that you have. And even though you look around and you find yourself alone, you are not; the Holy Spirit and the power of God is alive inside you. Then you are a man standing your ground in the power of His might!

Malcolm Muggeridge, “ The first thing I concluded about the world—and I pray it may be the last—is that I was a stranger in it.”

Today, I stood in a room full of people, all of whom I loved; however, I felt completely disconnected and alone.  In the car tonight, I felt as though I could keep driving and never be noticed.  "Everyone else seems so far away," I thought. 

It was here that I realized the truth of Psalms 69:8:  
"I am become a stranger unto my brethren and an alien unto my mother's children."

It is purposed that I not feel comfortable anywhere except in the complete presence of my Creator.  Moreso, Psalms 69:13 explains how this is, in fact, preparing us for God's ordained timing to exhibit His mercy to us, despite these periods of loneliness: 
"But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time:  O God, in the multitude of they mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation."

So it doesn't really matter if you feel like you fit into the pews at your church perfectly.  It's trivial to consider the approval of the popular crowd.  To be amazing in the wording or each and every prayer is vanity.  Faith in intellect and wit is hopeless; even Proverbs asserts:  many are the plans of a man's heart, but it is the counsel of the Lord that will stand (Pro. 19:21).  Our spiritual destiny is not to fit into this world; it is to change it!

Let us take advantage of loneliness to worship God through the words, attitude, and actions in Ruth 2:10:
"Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the fround, and said unto him, 'Why have I found grace in thine eyes, that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stanger?"

Now this is something we can find nowhere else!

"Before one learns patience with oneself, one must learn patience with God.  Our patience with ourselves and those around us is indicative of our true relational trust and patience in God, Himself.  Could it be that patience is the very substance that God has chosen to reveal His true desire to give His absolute best to the child He loves the absolute most?"

I don't know about you, but sometimes I just don't like waiting...especially for things like a sense of purpose in what I am doing.  I mean, really...why can't God tell me now and let me run as hard as I can in the direction he wants me to go?  Afterall, I'm ready for whatever comes my way; I'm able to do all things through Christ, right?

Psalms 27:14, "Wait on the Lord:  be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart:  wait, I say, on the Lord."

Lamentations 3:25, "The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the sould that seeketh him.  It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."

Micah 7:7, "Therefore I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation:  my God will hear me."

Could it be that God is more concerned about my relationship than He is about the works I can accomplish for Him in the name of Christ?  Could it be that it is actually to my benefit that God is requesting me to wait?  Could it be that it is His desire to give me all good things and this only comes through wait upon Him? 

In all honesty, I am ashamed of rushing past the very moments God has laid at my feet--moments meant for me to grow strong, moments meant to for me to gain good things, moments meant for me experience salvation of God that actual listens to his subordinate.  Waiting was created for my good, not God's.  And He is so patient to see me through it so that we can come to know each other more.  How great is Jehova to love such a wayward child!  How great is His everlasting love!