Falling Short

This may seem like a wacked out title, especially when you look at this photo, but bear with me for a minute. I had another dream last night that seems to have a point.

The last dream of my night, last night, found me shopping for something to celebrate Mother's Day. For some reason, I was looking for something in a Consignment Shop. After looking all around, I found an old photo album with pages made from cloth. It didn't seem too large at first, but with each page turn, it seemed to grow. I was surprised to realize that there were keepsakes from its former owner, still tucked between the fragile pages. I came to learn that their names were Harold and Carol. I encountered snapshots and newspaper clippings.

Then things got strange. Several pages in, as I gently turned the page, I realized that Carol was in the book. I don't mean she was there in pictures, she was actually lying between the pages! I froze for a moment. But then I realized that she wasn't dead at all. She had just been in a deep sleep. I turned another page or two and I found Harold. He too had been sleeping. It took some time for me to get them to wake up.

After a little while, I looked out behind the building and I saw that they had stepped out for a smoke. I figured I would see if they could help me understand what was happening. When I asked about their experience, they said that they had been in an extremely deep sleep, from which they were unable to escape. And in their dreams, they had no legs. They said that they had been trying to go where they thought they were supposed to go and they were trying to do what they thought they were supposed to be doing, but with no legs, they went nowhere and accomplished nothing.

Then I woke up.

It seems to me though that this is how most of the world feels on a daily basis. They are sleeping through life trying to go where they think they are supposed to go and trying to do what they think they are supposed to be doing. But in the end, they sense that they are going nowhere and accomplishing nothing, and yet they are powerless to change their plight.

And yet, we can give them their legs. We can introduce them to the One who created them. We can show them that He created them for a very real purpose. They have value and their life is no mistake. They are loved not because of what they do or where they go, but because of who He is. And then He gives them their legs, and shows them how to use them.

myspace.com - Crossroads of the double life

With all of the backlash about myspace, I wonder if it might end up being a blessing in disguise. So many of our teens testify that they have lived a double life. They are one person at school and someone totally different when they are around their "Christian" friends.

When they first started using sites like myspace, they assumed they were operating within their "school" world. And so, their sites reflected who they were at school. So, when we adults wandered in, the shock was two-fold. We were shocked at what we were seeing and they were shocked that we were looking.

Without realizing it, the two lives our teens were leading came to an intersection. They quickly realized that the spectators from both of their lives were mixed on the street corner watching to see who they would be when forced to merge those lives.

What we have seen following our recent Youth Councils is that many of our teens have begun to trust the Lord to make them teens of integrity. They desperately want to be the same person in all the settings of their lives. MySpace seems to have forced them to make a decision and the Holy Spirit is giving them the courage to make the right choice.

Please pray that He would continue to move with power. This generation is different and I can't wait to see what God is going to do through them.

The hunch I have though, is that the person they are at church may not be any less of a facade for them than the person they are trying to be at school. Pray that they would discover exactly who God created them to be and that they would have the courage to allow Him to make them into that person.