A child dreaming of death.
I grew up in Southern California in a non-religious family. It’s not that we hated God or anything, we just didn’t think about that sort of thing. But even as a child, deep in my heart I knew there was something more than just living day-to-day and getting by. I had a recurring dream that haunted me my entire childhood, from my very earliest memory.
In this dream I began at whatever age I was currently. I found myself moving down what I can only describe as a tunnel of my life where I would watch myself experience typical activities, going to school, eating dinner and so forth. Then as the dream began to accelerate I would see scenes of myself getting older. I didn’t see faces from my future I just had a sense of who people were and what they were doing. I would graduate high school, then college; I saw myself get married, then having children. Later I saw myself in a successful career and vacations. Then, soon after, I saw myself with grandchildren on my knee. Then as the dream reached a fevered pitch I would slam into a wall that I knew was death, and awake with a start. Even as a child I knew that death was an inevitable conclusion to my life and it was with defeat and despair that I wept into my pillow.
As my mother began attending a community church my sister and I went along. My dad just really wasn’t interested at the time so we three went alone. It was there at Knott Avenue Christian Church that I first heard about God and His plan of salvation. It was there that I first learned about Jesus and how he died to pay for my sins. I slowly started to understand that God was really interested in me and that He had a plan to deal with my overwhelming fear of death. As I put my trust in Him I began to experience peace. Peace about my future, peace about my relationship to God, peace about my whole life. Eventually, even my dreams began to change.
It was many years later and I was having the same dream once again. Every thing was the same. The dream accelerated through all the phases of my life, rapidly approaching the wall of death that I had so often faced with dread. But this time the dream ended differently… pleasantly. Instead of merely hitting the wall and awaking startled and afraid, this time I passed through the wall as if it weren’t even there and found myself floating in the brilliant presence of the glorified Christ. The relief and peace I felt are beyond description. My heart began to swell with joy as I gently awoke with a broad smile on my face. Ever since, I have never had the dream again. Jesus has freed me from my fears and given me the assurance that I will be with Him forever.
If you want to know how to be saved from your sin and know you will go to heaven when you die my friend Mike Parrott has a simple outline and a video on his website.
Cool. It is interesting how our paths crossed. For those that don’t know, Ken’s family moved to Spokane, where our dads worked together. It was about 7th grade that Ken and I met. Yeah, I have only known him for about 27 years. It has been interesting as we have both been walking this path of faith through all sorts of things. It is cool when you have someone else headed the same direction as you.
His dad finally did come to Christ one Easter. Every time when I would preach an Easter message, I would always try to knock that message out of the park, just in case there was one man out there who hadn’t understood God’s grace yet, and it was his time to come home. I always thought of Ken’s dad when preparing for my Easter messages.