A Flawed Dream

Well, in my defense, I wrote this blog around 5 pm "yesterday" (aka Wednesday), but I had to run off to the football game...and I didn't want to send it out without a final edit! So either way, sorry it's late. :( However, I do want to say that it was great to see some of you at the football game! Go Cardinals - it was quite a nail biter....40 to 19 or something? So close! Only like 3 touchdowns difference! After the game, I (as well as a few SJV people I saw there) went to the Red Rock for a free concert and then a bonfire...which all just got over...so now I'm doing a final edit at 1:30 in the morning...which isn't bad, except that I should really get up "early" to get to SJV (aka by 9 am). One quick reminder - Photo Shoot Fundraiser (just the photo taking part) tomorrow 1 to 3 and Friday from 2 to 4, as well as a Lunch Club Friday at noon at Perkins. Oh, and a quick sidenote - Catherine is an amazing dancer when she has more sugar in her system than should ever be legal. Just thought I would let everyone know. :)

A few people who made the impromptu Breakfast Club this morning got to hear part of this story for the blog already...

Anyways, last night I had a dream that I was at McDonalds (I was already dreaming about going to Breakfast Club!), and as I was leaving McDonalds, I noticed that the driver's side headlight of my car was completely smashed in. I could see how a moving truck (from the moving truck rental place that was next door to the McDonalds in my dream) had backed into my car and left a ton of damage. I was partially worried about how it was dark out and I needed BOTH headlights to drive, and I was partially upset because no one had come in to report the accident.

After these initial thoughts, I walk over to the truck rental place, step inside, and tell a woman working at the desk that someone driving one of THEIR trucks has crashed into my car. Somehow, in this dream, someone had already estimated the cost of my damage (I think this estimate was left on my windshield rather than a note with a confession from the perpetrator). Either way, I hand this note to the worker and say that I hope they are planning on paying for my damage. At this point, the owner-looking guy comes out and talks with me, he goes with me out to my car to see the damage himself, but the whole time he is very cold towards me like this is all my fault.

We walk back into the small office of the rental company, and he hands me $5,000 to repair my car (nice, sure, except that in my dream the cost is going to be nearly $6,000 for repairs - which I'm pretty sure is an impossible number with only superficial damage to the front corner of my car - especially since the whole car is barely worth more than that!). So, the guy hands me $5,000, and I don't want to accept the money - because I want them to pay for ALL of the repairs, and I am thinking that it would be much smarter for me to take this up with my car insurance company and his insurance company...

The guy can see that I am debating whether or not $5,000 is enough or if I am going to choose to use my insurance company to fight. He then says, "Cmon, take it, you know that $5,000 is the more than you will get if you go through your insurance." After having him discredit my smarter reaction to take this up with my insurance company, I accept the $5,000 from him and leave the office. As I walk out to my car, I double check that there is actually $5,000 there and am surprised to see that he truly gave me the amount he said (he was kinda a shady guy, so I wasn't completely convinced that I would find the full $5,000 in my hand). As I am walking back to my car, I am kicking myself the whole time wondering why in the world I caved in, when I knew I was right to take this to my insurance company and not to accept his "bribe" that didn't even cover all of the damages. After feeling this guilt, anger, and embarrassment, I woke up.

How many instances have you had like this in your own life? Instances where you let someone talk you out of what your better judgment told you, just because they slightly discredited what you knew was right? I find myself doing that all of the time - I always tend to trust what other people say more than what I think. That doesn't mean that I necessarily believe them, but I get too scared to contradict them in their presence. (Instead, I sometimes tend to say my true thoughts when that person is not around...which really doesn't solve anything)

In our role as Christians, we are called to be willing to stand up and contradict people who we know are doing wrong. We are told to not stand aside while we see others in pain and suffering - we are told to take action to ease their troubles - to offer that helping hand and that voice of resistance towards the evil in this world. As I've said before, our silence isn't always golden - and people in this world who are doing wrong love it when we remain silent to their evil ways. Just like in my dream, that man was thrilled that I took his lie that $5,000 was the most that I could get - he knew it wasn't true, he knew he was at fault and that I had enough evidence to prove that it was one of his trucks that hit my car (in the dream, it was like a truck indent in my car - impossible to mistake as any other vehicle causing the damage), and he knew he had to deceive me so that he could avoid having to pay out the full amount as well as avoid the rate increase that his insurance would surly take. That's why I was so upset in my dream - I knew I had fallen for his deceit and that I had not stood up for myself or for my rights. Just like all of us, we need to be willing to stand up for our beliefs and our convictions, because if we do not stand up in the face of controversy, we will harm ourselves as well as God for falling for the deceit.

So what in your life is currently causing you to fall for this deceit?

Check out these verses from Numbers 20:2-13 -- it demonstrates how groups of people can deceive us into not believing that God will provide for all our needs:

"Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. They quarreled with Moses and said, "If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the Lord! Why did you bring the Lord's community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!"

Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the Lord appeared to them. The Lord said to Moses, "Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink."

So Moses took the staff from the LORD's presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.

But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."

These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the LORD and where he showed himself holy among them."

Final editor's note: I hope this blog made sense. I don't think very coherently at 1:30 a.m....so my editing wasn't as up to par as usual.... until tomorrow!