DO YOUR HOMEWORK!
I had a dream early this week (last week of June 2019).
It is one of those dreams
which you remember vividly
as soon as you wake up,
every detail, every nuance
is very clear to your mind
almost as if you really lived the events
in real life.
In fact I think it was a message from the Lord and
I will like to share it with you.
In my dream,
I was in a third world country,
could be Sierra Leone, West Africa, or some other African Country.
And yet, it can also be in the United States, South Carolina, or Illinois,
places I have lived for significant periods of time;
(funny thing about dreams –they can fit in multiple locations at once).
In my dream
I was looking to buy a used car –
I was looking for a deal – because
I did not want to pay too much and yet
I wanted a very good car –
in fact a BMW.
I had this friend
(nameless in the dream, but
I had known him for quite a while
in the dream.
He had gained my trust.
It appeared that he was good at making the type of connections
I was seeking
to get me a very good car –
in the dream!
As a result,
I gave him a significant sum of money –
Over $10,000
in the dream.
Not too long after he called me to say he had found the perfect car for me, and
I was excited!
I went over to his car shop
(he was a mechanic) and
the first thing I noticed were a couple of arm chairs,
old wooden and reconditioned arm chairs classics.
Someone had taken what looked like a BMW logo decal and
pasted it on the front end of one of the arms
on each of these chairs.
I thought to myself,
“I hope nobody is trying to pass this off as a ‘bucket’ seat of a BMW car”
“Hmm, this does not have anything to do with my car”
But I followed my ‘friend’ into his shop.
A privately owned body shop
His shop was a bit away from any main road/street –
It was a non-franchise shop
not like Meineke, or Tuffy, or Firestone, or anything like that.
The floor was bare; grease and dirt had formed successive layers over time.
It was somewhat narrow, tall, and
there’re were parts of old cars
at different stages of being put back together.
The length of the shop
was about a semi-trailer and a half long,
with hydraulic lifts, tool boxes etc.,
strewn all along the building, such that
there is no way to tell what is at the back of the building
when one enters the door at the front.
So my ‘friend’ takes me into his shop
but I do not see a car
in the dream.
I am thinking:
“It must be at the back,
at the end of the building”
in my dream.
Halfway through the building
all I can still see are scraps,
here and there, and then
the shell and/skeleton of a car, but
no shiny, new BMW
of my dreams!
Then, I see this old skeleton of a car!
There were
no panels,
no doors,
no floor carpets,
no rear-view mirror,
no side view mirror
no parking, head, signal or brake lights;
no seats, and the steering wheel
was mostly metal
in my dream.
The color was rusted or corrupted away;
it was hard to tell
what color this frame of a car was, and
it was obviously very old.
It was the type of thing
one would find in a junk yard –
after it had been stripped away
by parts scavengers.
My ‘friend’ began to tell me
about how this ‘skeleton’ was going to be,
a classic,
the envy of my friends,
the perfect car
of very high antique value
that I was longing for,
when he was finished with it.
I need not worry at all
in my dream.
The antique armchairs
at the front of the building,
were indeed the ‘pilot’ ‘bucket’ seats
for the car
in my dream!
In my dream,
I was aghast.
Shaken to my core.
How can it be?
I was angry with him.
I sat him down, and began to tell him that
I was no longer interested in this project; that
I wanted my money back.
As I am speaking to him,
in the dream,
I am realizing that
he was not my friend, that
he was a scam artist, and that
I had a monumental task
to get my money back from him.
I am thinking
will I have to go to the police?
Is it going to be nasty?
Does he even have my money
to give back to me?
How did we get here?
Do your Homework!
Photo by Startup Stock Photos on Pexels.com
THEN I WOKE UP!!!
From my dream!
The dream remained fresh in my mind.
It seemed to me that the fact that
I remembered it so clearly,
could be taken as a message
(from God!)
to me, and
to others.
I thought,
I must pass the lessons
of my dream to others.
God gave me this dream
as a teaching moment
that I and others might learn from it.
So, what are the lessons?
ADDICTED TO ‘EASY’!
I like most people,
(I think) am ‘addicted to easy’.
The phrase is not original with me.
I first heard Pastor Tom Harding
of Alive Church, in Central, SC,
use it once as he described his own personal journey,
and I immediately identified with it.
Why did I want to have someone else
in my dream
do the leg work for me
to buy a good car?
With so many internet tools at our disposal
to search for stuff we want,
why ask someone
to do it for you,
when you can do it yourself?
Why did I not do enough of my own homework
about whether I can trust this person
with my hard earned money?
Why was I so quick
to part with my money to someone
who would in the end scam me?
QUICK FIXES
Why did I not want to wait
in my dream,
until I had saved enough money
to buy the quality car
that I really wanted?
Why am I asking someone to perform ‘magic’
for me
(i.e. do a miracle –
give me the desire of my heart
with little cost/effort
on my part)
when I can work my own way
towards my own ‘miracle’?
Why did I go looking for a ‘miracle’
of a nice car at below market value
now,
when a better opportunity might present itself
to me
if I was patient enough to wait for it?
Why did I not wait
until the perfect
and (better) opportunity
presented itself
to buy the car that I wanted?
Why do I have to have it now?
TOO TRUSTING!
Too late!
After I woke up, and
going over the details of the dream,
I realized that in the dream,
I did not specify
the year,
model,
condition,
timeframe that the car was to be purchased, and
the mileage of the car that I wanted.
I did not specify that
I did not want a rebuilding project
for a car,
nor what would be the exit arrangements
if I or my ‘friend’ were dissatisfied
at the performance of the agreement
we were entering into.
I just left it all up to my ‘friend’.
That is not to say
I had no true friends
in the dream
that I could trust for very important aspects
of my life.
It was just that ultimately,
I had allowed others to become responsible
on my behalf,
to make decisions
which were mine alone to make.
Why?
Naivety,
forgetfulness of the
self-centeredness, and yes,
sinfulness
of the human heart.
Most people would put their interest first over that of the others
If/when it comes to a choice
between those two –
including me –
alas if not all the time
I would say most times,
but for the grace of God!!
So?
DO YOUR HOMEWORK
Prov. 10.4
“Lazy hands
make a man poor, but
diligent hands
bring wealth”
AVOID QUICK FIXES,
Prov. 16.32
“Better
a patient man
than a warrior,
a man who controls his temper
than one who takes a city”.
DON’T BE NAÏVE!!
Prov. 22.3:
“A prudent man
sees danger and
takes refuge,
but the simple
keep going and
suffer for it.”
Blessings
Dr. Ray
