I Had a Dream

Last night I had dream…or maybe it was a vision…I’m not sure which. I saw a young boy in a blue and white striped baseball uniform. He was crying. Not sure exactly why he had a baseball uniform on. He was crying because he didn’t know the answers to the questions before him on his homework assignment. I briefly flashed back to similar moments in my own childhood. This boy, he walked up to his father. He looked so defeated. He looked up and said, “I don’t know how to do this. Just tell me the answers.” The father gestured to the desk and motioned for the child to sit back down. The young boy didn’t follow the suggestion. “Just tell me the answer. I can’t do this. Why can’t you just tell me how to do it or give me the answers?!” His tone this time was less than respectful and to be honest, was down right annoying. The father, once again did not verbally respond, but gently again pointed back to the desk.

At first I thought this gentle man, whom I could only see the back of his head, was guiding him back to the desk as to encourage the child to work through the problem and figure it out on his own. I was impressed by his restraint to not scold the child for his choice of such a disrespectful display of communication. I then looked over at the desk and saw there was a book just to the right of where the child was sitting. It was an answer key to the child’s homework. I wanted to jump in and tell the child to just open the book with all the answers. Why doesn’t he just look at the book? I wondered why the father didn’t just take the book and hand it to the child.

In that moment, I heard a message. “He knows the book is there, and I have told him many times that it holds the answers. He CHOOSES not to look at the book.” I suddenly realized this dream had such a profound message. With that, my dream abruptly ended. I felt myself sinking down into the mattress of the bed. This dream was not about a frustrated little league baseball playing child. It was about me.

How many times have I prayed for God to show me the answer to a problem? How many times have I pleaded with Him to give me the wisdom to equip me for a situation? Do I think He answers those requests without me doing any work to get there? Sometimes. However, I wonder if in the majority of the time, if He feels slapped in the face. He tells us that the Bible is there for us and holds so many of the answers. He has told us that it will give us the wisdom and guidance for what we face. However, we choose not to read it as much as we should. Instead, we expect Him to give the answers to us in our way. The simple way, without having to do anything to get it….you know, like pick up the Book and just read it. I wonder how many times I have asked, worried, pleaded, and have begged without going to the Book of all the answers. I wondered how many times I have prayed for an answer and just sat and waited. How many times have I asked for an answer and gotten frustrated when I didn’t see the writing on the wall or some kind of sign that He was willing to help me? It has to be so insulting that we don’t listen to Him and open that Book of answers.

After this experience, I thought about how my daily devotionals have not been a priority lately with the chaos in life. I thought about how if I was more disciplined in my readings, maybe I would spend less time in that anxious state of wondering how things will come out, or wondering what the answer is to so many things. I realized I am not so far off from that whining child at times. As you can imagine, when I abruptly woke up from that dream, I turned on the light, picked up the devotional, and read some scripture.


The Book sits next to us all, and our Father is constantly pointing us back to it…..