Never Stop Dreaming

Some time ago I had a conversation with a little girl who was hurting like hell.  Her Mom and Dad had gotten divorced, and the girl (who I’ll call “Princess”) was reeling from the shock.  She hurt so badly she couldn't bring herself to say that dreadful “D” word.  Princess loved her parents like all kids do; she had been praying for months that they would stop shouting and settle their differences.  But they hadn’t.  And now she wondered out loud, “Does prayer make any difference?  Is God even there?”

Many of us struggle with spiritual depression when our heartfelt prayers seem to go unanswered.  We keep our doubts hidden because we're afraid having such doubts means we're bad Christians.  And then we just stop praying, because we're not sure that prayer makes any difference. 

All of which reminds me of an old rhyme: “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall/ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall/ and all the king's horses and all the king's men/ couldn't put Humpty together again.”  After praying and praying, and not seeing any change, we begin to wonder if God can ever piece together the broken bits of our miserable lives.

I’ve felt like this.  I’ll bet you have too.  Is there a cure for spiritual cynicism?  Can we learn to hope again?  I know we can because of an amazing prayer written by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians.  It’s sort of a window into the compassionate heart of God, with a panoramic view of God’s plan to heal everything that’s broken in the world.  The prayer shows us that “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”  Believe me, when you look through this window your mind will start to race with beautiful dreams again.

Paul wrote this prayer while locked up in a Rome prison.  (I’ve stood inside the dark, cave-like cell where it’s believed he was held captive.)  For years he had endured persecution as he carried the message of Jesus to the far ends of the Roman world.  Paul’s preaching sparked revivals, and then riots, wherever he went.  But in spite of intense suffering, his praying radiates optimism.  Paul is absolutely certain that God is in charge and that the best is yet to come.  He sees himself, and his readers, as actors in a great drama written by God, a story with a very happy ending.

Let's read through the key parts of Paul's prayer:  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . .  In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace . . . . In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.  (1:3-5)

Did you notice how the prayer begins with praise to God?  It's normal to feel anxious when we’re suffering, but Paul's worries evaporate as he considers God's gracious plan to adopt us as sons and daughters and repair our broken lives.  We’ve made a mess, but God is on the move, and there’s a glorious spring cleaning just around the corner.  As Paul says elsewhere, “where sin abounds, grace abounds even more”!  No wonder this prayer feels like Paul is dancing in his tiny cell as he prays it.

Paul uses the word “predestination” to describe God's redemptive purpose.  God has worked out his whole plan in advance!  Predestination is good news, because it means that my restoration to wholeness doesn’t depend on my will-power or strength.  My weakness and inability are irrelevant.  God’s promise to heal the world is determined by God's will, period.  It’s guaranteed.  Since God's power is ultimate, absolutely nothing can block his beautiful plan from coming true.

Consider J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic story “The Lord of the Rings.”  The world is threatened with destruction, but little hobbits are chosen to be forerunners of a new era.  In spite of treachery and fierce opposition, they keep pushing forward with their mission to destroy a dangerous ring because they are sure a happy ending has been determined by a higher power.  By the end of the long and winding story, not only will every good thing they’ve ever dreamed of come true, but (as Sam says to Frodo) “every sad thing will come untrue.”

The prayer continues:  He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (1:9-10)

It sounds like everything ever blighted by evil is going to be reclaimed for God, putting “all things in heaven and on earth” back together again.  Not right away, not all at once, but in the end, “when the times have reached their fulfillment.”  If this is so, we’ll need a new Humpty Dumpty.  (“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall/ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall/ Humpty Dumpty shouted Amen!/ God will put me together again!”)

Now Paul prays that the God who secures our future will correct our vision:  I pray that the eyes of your heart will be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance . . . and his incomparably great power for us who believe.  (1:18-19)

The riches of his glorious inheritance!  There’s no need to keep stumbling around in the cold and dark, not knowing that my house is sitting on top of a lost gold mine, not knowing that I’ve got the winning lottery ticket in my pocket.  This is a wake up prayer!  Open your eyes and see the immense inheritance God has prepared—the glorious restoration of all his lost sons and daughters!

That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion . . . not only in the present age but also in the one to come.  And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. (1:19-23)

Now we see what Paul offers as proof of the happy ending toward which God is moving the world.  It’s the fact that God already gave his Son to mend the jagged fractures between heaven and earth and that we can now see his love spreading out and literally filling “everything in every way.” 

When we pray, we reorient ourselves by what Christ did of us, 2,000 years ago, apart from our effort.  Christ is my substitute.  He defeated death on my behalf.  He died for me, he rose for me and he lives for me.  Now Christ reigns in heaven as the all-powerful Messiah who shares God's throne, overcoming every destructive power for me and for you and for little Princess, and for her Mom and Dad too.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. (3:14-17)

In this part of Paul's prayer we see an interesting shift.  The Christ who dwells in heaven at God’s right hand also wants to live in us.  The redemption that God accomplished outside of us needs to be applied inside of us.  The Christ of history is also the Christ who “dwells in our hearts through faith.”  So how does it work, Christ dwelling in me?

Jesus is the model man who lived in total dependence on God.  As an actor in the divine drama, his role had been scripted ahead of time by his heavenly Father, and that’s why he was always listening for cues from the Master Playwright.  He says, “I do nothing on my own” (Jn 5:30).  Following God’s cues, Jesus cared for the scumbags and sufferers God placed in his path.  His unconditional love for both abused and abuser led him finally to the cross of Calvary, where like my little Princess, he wondered why God had forsaken him.  But even while stretched out in agony, his child-like trust in God enabled him to pray through tears, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Lk 23:46).

Jesus felt he was part of a true fairy tale written by God.  He knew God’s Story is like a mighty river rushing down from mountain glaciers, relentlessly pushing past every obstacle as it seeks its goal.  He knew God’s ultimate purpose cannot be thwarted.  So he followed his Father’s cues, and trusted and prayed and waited and watched, and suffered and died.  Finally, Sunday morning, he became the first man to see God’s happy ending and live happily ever after.

When Christ dwells in my heart it means I’m learning to depend on the heavenly Father just as he did.  It means I’m learning to trust in the absolute power and love of God, knowing that he chose me in Christ before the world began as part of his plan to salvage every square inch of his creation.

And I pray that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (3:17-19)

God’s vast reconstruction project is powered by love, for God is love.  So Paul prays that Christ’s followers might be “rooted and grounded in love.”  He asks God to show us “how wide and long and high and deep” his love really is.  Bible translations struggle to express the extravagant dimensions of God’s love.  Early Christians noted that these dimensions match the shape of a cross.  They saw a horizontal pole stretched out wide and long to embrace all nations and every sin-scarred individual.  They saw a vertical pole pointed deep into the earth, the realm of the dead, as it simultaneously points high to heaven, uniting us with the immortal God.

Frederick Lehman composed one of the church’s beloved hymns while meditating on Paul’s prayer.  It was World War I.  The nations were engaged in bloody conflict and Lehman’s son was missing in action.  War is hell.  But here is what Lehman wrote:

The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell.

O love of God, how rich and pure!  How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—the saints’ and angels’ song.

That’s poetry for a little girl whose world is falling apart.

From earliest times, believers have affirmed in the Apostles’ Creed that after Christ was crucified, “he descended into hell” to proclaim God’s victory in the realm of the dead and release its captives.  Consequently, Christ’s followers have been willing to follow their Lord to the hellish places of this world—the gutters of Calcutta, the dark alleys of Chicago, the divorce courts of Iowa, the bombed out cities of Syria—horrid haunts of the living dead, where Jesus still embraces the suffering, to show that they too are beloved of God.

In God’s Story the love that heals creation is meant to flow through human channels.  So Paul prays for us to be filled with this relentless, overcoming love for the sake of the world.  Or in Paul’s very words, “to be filled with the fullness of God.”  God wants to pour his love into our hearts so it will overflow in all directions until every ugly, putrid, evil thing is buried and washed away in a flood of grace. 

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations, forever and ever!  Amen. (3:20-21)

The climax of Paul’s prayer is doxology, giving glory to God for the restoring love that goes beyond our wildest dreams.  This isn’t hyperbole.  Paul isn’t overly optimistic.  He’s just remembering what Jesus himself promised: “Everything is possible for him who believes” (Mk 9:23).  Jesus not only believed that everything is possible, he demonstrated it.  Jesus healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead.  Jesus endured the cross and rose from the grave, and now he’s ruling in heaven and dwelling in our hearts to ensure that every grave will be emptied and every sad story will come untrue.

Since God’s plan to heal the world goes beyond our wildest dreams, it must be true that anything we can imagine in accord with his plan to put our broken lives back together again will be done.  God’s glorious new world has already touched down in the mouth of an empty Judean tomb.  Sooner or later, the life-giving presence of Immanuel, God with us, will cover the whole earth. 

Our dreams of a new world where every wrong is made right are not crazy.  They are actually fragments of a divine Master Dream.  God’s final words in the Bible are these: “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev 21:5).  God's invincible, triumphant grace means we never have to stop dreaming.  Recall the basic points:

1)   God is all-powerful—His redeeming purpose for the world is  predestined and a happy ending is certain, sooner or later.

2)   God is all-loving—even when I suffer he is shaping circumstances for my good, as well as for the ultimate restoration of everything damaged by sin.

3)  God is eternal—he's able to take all the time needed to accomplish his dream, both in this age and in the age to come.

So with Paul’s great prayer as a framework, and with Christ dwelling in my heart, here’s how I’m going to keep dreaming no matter what.  Through prayer I find my place in God’s story.  I listen for his cues in the divine drama.  Prayer becomes an adventure as I watch for the ways Jesus is working to make everything right again.  My faith is one of the indispensable threads in the growing fabric of God’s new world.  I’m a channel of grace.  Every story has conflict and things that go horribly wrong, but I don’t give up, because God’s love is unstoppable.

Knowing I can’t fix the broken stuff, that I’m not in control, I cry out to God for grace.  St. Augustine said, “The best disposition for prayer is that of being desolate, forsaken, stripped of everything.”  So I bring my mess with me, into prayer, and dump it on God.  No matter how horrendous, there’s no pit so deep that his love is not deeper still.  The heavenly Father will hold me tightly in the midst of life’s rubble.

I keep dreaming.  I look for the blades of grass that eventually push up through cracks in the concrete.  Instead of worrying, I watch for Jesus in the broken places.  Here are words from Paul E. Miller, whose book The Praying Life inspired some of the ideas in this sermon: “When you stop trying to control your life, you watch God weave his pattern in the story.  You realize you’re in God’s drama.  As you wait, you see him work, and your life sparkles with wonder.  You are learning to trust again.”

To finish up, I want to go back to the little girl who told me she’d given up praying for her parents to ever love each other again.  Here’s my response to the Princess.  First, don’t be embarrassed by how weak you feel.  It’s OK to be helpless.  In fact, the first step into God’s kingdom is when you realize you can’t do life on your own, that you can’t fix the broken things.  Your depression is the doorway to God.  Don’t run away from him when you’re hurting.  Instead, run toward him.

Second, little Princess, our Father in heaven has written a true fairy tale with a happy ending.  And you, and your Mom and Dad, are part of the story.  He’s a God of pure love and giving, and he has promised to get rid of every speck of hatred and selfishness in the universe.  Your dream of sweet harmony between those you love is not silly at all.  It’s God’s dream too, for the whole universe, and it will certainly come true.

Princess, don’t worry if this dream takes a long time to come true.  God has lots of broken hearts to mend.  We’re all stubborn, self-centered people.  So it may take God awhile to accomplish his goal.  God has to take us through much toil and trouble to rid us of selfishness.  Sometimes his love feels like a scorching fire, but that’s how he purifies us.  Maybe you’ll see a lot of healing come true in this life, or maybe just a little.  Maybe the process of making us whole will extend beyond this age into the age to come.  But you can be sure of this: there’s no hatefulness in heaven, and when you get there with your Mom and Dad someday, you’ll all love and respect each other again.  God is more powerful than our stubborn hearts, and he doesn’t give up on any of us. 

So keep praying, dear one.  Don’t demand that the story go just the way you think it should.   Trust the story-teller.  Look for the ways that God is working in the story.  Even if it hurts like hell, stay in the story.  “There’s no gain without pain.”  Let Christ dwell in your heart and teach you how to love your family through the good and bad of life.  God will use your love for your Mom and Dad as part of their healing.  And God will use their love to heal your heart too.