230. Dream of Preaching
As I continue to go through my old journals, I came upon this entry from February of 1997—sixteen years ago. It is here just as I wrote it then:
I woke up yesterday with a dream that I had been asked to preach somewhere. I think in the dream I was clear about where but by this time, I don’t remember. Anyway, then I was asked not to preach (I think because of my liberal leanings) and I said “No—I was asked and I am going to preach.”
The sermon I preached was on the Love Test and I basically said that when we walk the road of Jesus we use the Love Test—of not excluding, not judging, not turning our backs on, and loving, just loving. And when we hold our actions and our beliefs up to that Love Test, we can tell if they hold up or not. Because the Love Test always remains constant.
I told those who were listening to me preach that when my children were younger, I told them that when they say “always”—This is always true. You always do this.—when they say “always” they were often wrong.
But the Love Test of Jesus is one of the instances where “always” is appropriate. There are no exceptions. When you walk the road with the Christ, you always love, you always include, you never turn your back on, you never judge, you always love.
I woke up feeling that this was an amazing discovery of the exception to my rule to the children.
—
It’s one of the advantages of writing things down—years later you have totally forgotten about it and as you prepare to throw away most of what you wrote down, you still can re-discover a kind of a neat dream.
