January 10, 2012

I dreamed last night that I was driving a pickup truck across a levee that was under water. The lake was rising in flood stage, and I made it across, where I was to pick up Audrey and then return across the same levee. The car ahead of me turned back, but I was confident I could make it. I have no idea what this dream means. Recording it here in my journal is a way of keeping it from disappearing from my consciousness.

Matthew 8

Having come down from the mountain where he was teaching, Jesus heals several people including a leper, a centurion’s servant, and Peter’s mother-in-law. With the disciples in a boat he rebukes them for being timid, men of little faith before he rebuked the winds and calmed the sea. This chapter finishes with Jesus in the country of the Gadarenes, met by two men who were demon possessed. He cast the demons into a herd of swine which then rushed down a steep bank into the sea. The local residents asked Jesus to leave their region.

Yesterday I watched the recent movie about John Wesley, and found it to be a good representation of his life and ministry through his 30s. He became a man of great faith, courage and action. In light of Matthew 8, recording many of the actions of Jesus, I am pleased to share spiritual roots with Wesley. It is way too easy as a religious leader to slip into a path of pleasing people and becoming timid. Wesley was rejected by the “proper” clerics of his day who did not like his work among the poor. Jesus is rejected by the residents of the Gadarenes who disliked his work with the two demoniacs and the resultant loss of pigs.

Thank you Lord for this chapter of scripture, its reminder to be bold, to act in faith, and to live close to the edge rather than in the safer middle. Guide me as I discern what that means for my ministry today, this week, and in the year 2012. I am yours, O Lord, your servant doing your work in this generation.