I want to share with you one of the ways that God sometimes chooses to teach me lessons.
I had been praying about an incident where I had caught myself expressing some arrogance concerning my relationship with God to this younger believer in the Lord. I had been praying about it cause it really bothered me that while all I was saying was true it was with an arrogant spirit rather than a loving spirit.
So any way, a few days later I awoke with this dream of which I could remember every detail. When that happens I pay attention and immediately began praying for understanding. A few hours later the answer came. See what you think, did I get it right?
In this dream I had been dredging for gold (i) on a spot on the Yuba River in California. I had had great success and had cleared away all the gravel over this material that appeared to be bedrock (ii) as it was hard and well cemented like a sedimentary rock (iii). Lots of gold but no big nuggets. Then I came back to the same area sometime latter and found another man dredging there, he was excited beyond words and just had to show me his finds. They were huge nuggets about the size of your forearm but to symmetrical, I did feel a bit of jealousy and asked him just where he found them. He told me that the bedrock I had cleared was "false bedrock" and when he broke through he found an old river channel that had never been mined. When I picked up one of his nuggets it crumbled and left a smaller but still impressive nugget behind.
The interpretation I got was that my initial efforts in living a spiritual life had indeed produced a bountiful harvest of valuable truth but there was still an even bigger harvest to be had which would require even more effort. Efforts others have done and had reaped the rewards from. Those rewards seem bigger to me than they really are and jealousy needs to plays no part in it. It was pride and self satisfaction that kept me from seeing the falseness of the bedrock I had mined and so I missed the bigger reward. It was the other miners pride (and my jealousy) that caused him and me to see the nuggets he found bigger than their actual size.
Spiritual pride can cause me to think I am something special, that God in His infinite wisdom has chosen me to give a special truth too, but there is always more to be had. So, to take pride in what truth I experienced can in fact keep me from experiencing even more truth.
Did I understand this right?
Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
Joel 2:29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
Joel 2:30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
Joel 2:31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Joe 2:32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.
So What do you think? Please let me know I value your opinions, experience and comments.
Endnotes
i Dredging is a type of mining where the gravel in a river bottom is sucked up in a kind of underwater vacuum and sent to a separating device called a sluice box that separates the gold and other heavy minerals from the gravel.
ii bedrock is the very bottom of the river and the gold collects here since it is the has the highest specific gravity of the minerals in the river
iii rock that is formed by pressure and time that is made from sediments.
I had been praying about an incident where I had caught myself expressing some arrogance concerning my relationship with God to this younger believer in the Lord. I had been praying about it cause it really bothered me that while all I was saying was true it was with an arrogant spirit rather than a loving spirit.
So any way, a few days later I awoke with this dream of which I could remember every detail. When that happens I pay attention and immediately began praying for understanding. A few hours later the answer came. See what you think, did I get it right?
In this dream I had been dredging for gold (i) on a spot on the Yuba River in California. I had had great success and had cleared away all the gravel over this material that appeared to be bedrock (ii) as it was hard and well cemented like a sedimentary rock (iii). Lots of gold but no big nuggets. Then I came back to the same area sometime latter and found another man dredging there, he was excited beyond words and just had to show me his finds. They were huge nuggets about the size of your forearm but to symmetrical, I did feel a bit of jealousy and asked him just where he found them. He told me that the bedrock I had cleared was "false bedrock" and when he broke through he found an old river channel that had never been mined. When I picked up one of his nuggets it crumbled and left a smaller but still impressive nugget behind.
The interpretation I got was that my initial efforts in living a spiritual life had indeed produced a bountiful harvest of valuable truth but there was still an even bigger harvest to be had which would require even more effort. Efforts others have done and had reaped the rewards from. Those rewards seem bigger to me than they really are and jealousy needs to plays no part in it. It was pride and self satisfaction that kept me from seeing the falseness of the bedrock I had mined and so I missed the bigger reward. It was the other miners pride (and my jealousy) that caused him and me to see the nuggets he found bigger than their actual size.
Spiritual pride can cause me to think I am something special, that God in His infinite wisdom has chosen me to give a special truth too, but there is always more to be had. So, to take pride in what truth I experienced can in fact keep me from experiencing even more truth.
Did I understand this right?
Joel 2:28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
Joel 2:29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.
Joel 2:30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
Joel 2:31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
Joe 2:32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.
So What do you think? Please let me know I value your opinions, experience and comments.
Endnotes
i Dredging is a type of mining where the gravel in a river bottom is sucked up in a kind of underwater vacuum and sent to a separating device called a sluice box that separates the gold and other heavy minerals from the gravel.
ii bedrock is the very bottom of the river and the gold collects here since it is the has the highest specific gravity of the minerals in the river
iii rock that is formed by pressure and time that is made from sediments.
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