The Mystery of Relationship

Have you ever wondered if you might be mad? You know—crazy as a loon, crackers, nut-so, touched in the head, or wacky Jack. I’m not referring to those who suffer from a mental illness, rather I’m speaking of being a person who dreams of things that seems to go against or even defy the status quo of what is commonly taught or believed. I’m speaking of hungering for something God says is possible, but most have yet to embrace or taste. When you think this way, you are often labeled a fanatic, kook, or heretic (this one usually rears its ugly head when those who disagree are unable to mount a real biblical defense and resort to demonizing the dream because it makes them very, very uncomfortable).

I don’t mind the names because I refuse to stitch their labels in my shirt. Those labels neither define who I am nor the depth of my dreams. So I refuse to fly their flag, wear their tag around my neck, or brandish their brand on my hip. There comes a place in your life when you have to push off the shore, paddle out into the deep, and pursue the things God has planted in your spirit even if it appears you might sail right off the edge of the world. That boat ride can be lonely, and usually is until the dream you are pursuing starts to making sense to other dreamers stranded on the shore, who long for more.

God is not into uniformity, even though he loves unity. We don’t all have to think, act, or dress the same to follow God. Uniformity equals boring and God is certainly not boring. He loves diversity, and I’m sure he gets a kick out of the dreamers all the others think are mad as hatters.

One of my dreams is a core value that God really desires a passionate, intimate relationship with all of us. That’s why he created people. I believe he placed us in Christ and has given us the Holy Spirit to enable each of us to experience this mind-blowing experience. There are few who would disagree with the concept, and yet most are unwilling to follow the path that will lead them that deep into the true heart of God. Its cost is far too much. Its pathway is fraught with danger and its steps too slippery. Most would say the cost outweighs the return, but those who would warn you away from this path and discourage you from this journey have never tasted the sheer satisfaction or the utter ecstasy of God’s true presence. Unwilling to pay the price, they have devised their own tales and woven their own stories about all the things God no longer does.

But…there are men and women, wandering pilgrims throughout the ages, who have chosen this passageway and been labeled eccentric, odd, fanatical, mystical, heretical, and even enemies of both church and state. Many were beaten, imprisoned, and martyred at the hands of their own religious leaders, fearful that their little earthly kingdoms might be destroyed if the heavenly kingdom of God envisioned by these dreamers ever truly manifested. Their books and writings were ridiculed, labeled as heresy, and burned because they challenged the ideas and dogma of an earlier dreamer. Their pages may have become ash and their bodies dust, but their dreams and ideas still fuel a fire that cannot be quenched. Those dreams and ideas have their genesis in God, therefore they are eternal. Chains could not restrain them. Swords, axes, stakes, and gallows failed to snuff them out. Armies cannot stop them. Death has no power over them. They belong to God—these ideas are the desires of his heart—ideas, visions, and dreams lent to the dreamer willing to embrace possibility of the impossible.

If—in the depths of your spirit you dream a similar dream or are driven by an insatiable hunger for something yet unnamed, or you just know there’s got to be more than you are currently experiencing—I invite you to walk with me along this narrow pathway for a short distance. I want to challenge you to dream the dream, jump off the ledge, let go what holds you back, grab for the gusto, spread your wings and fly, or whatever you choose to call it. There is far more than we have been led to believe or have yet to dream when it comes to the passionate heart of God.

And…it all begins with this mystery called relationship.