A lot of dung-slinging is going on in society today in the name of righteous judgment. A lot of criticism is floating around in the name of defining justice. (Does it mean giving a pittance to the poor man, but stopping short of detailing why he is poor in the first place?) Most troublesome of all, how do you tell someone you think they're dead wrong when they believe they have all righteous wrath on their side? This is a heavy cloud of many layers over our world today.
And yet, You've been showing me that You have the work of a judge--particularly in the context of prophetic warning--ahead of me. You're working on teaching me how to go about it Your way. I look at the dream I had about warning people of an earthquake, but since they didn't "feel" it in the permanent, main complex of their lives, they did not take the warning seriously. (My husband, too, has had this dream of being sent to warn those who did not want to hear him when he dreamed he was rescuing people off the tail of an airplane. He cried out that it was about to explode; but the first class passengers were taking their time, gathering their belongings, leaving nothing behind, until finally he had to leave them because the fireball erupted at their end of the plane and started flying back toward him. He jumped to the escape slide in time to at least save himself.) What do you do with these calls to warn and rescue?
The first thing I find You're doing with me is to refine my definition of rescuer. I muddy that definition too much with being an enabler of irresponsibility in others. In visiting with a friend, I was able to define for myself a pattern I tend to follow: when I see something before me that I'm fit to do and do well, I rush in and begin to build things that others could help with, even learn from, but because it's easier for me to do them myself, I ignore opportunities to motivate others to do grow, at least in those domains that call for rescue work. So I weaken those around me who should help me and broaden the boundary of my own workload until I make myself so ill and utterly burned out on the assignment that I collapse and have to leave it entirely to recouperate. But this year I've been learning some new ways.
I've been subbing this year, not teaching, just subbing. I've subbed primarily for a woman who is a band director and had some sudden emergency health situations arise in her family that called her out of the workplace pretty frequently. In this subbing assignment, I've had to limit myself. I was not in charge for more than a day or two at a time. I had clear-cut boundaries as to how I could use my skills. I could help kids learn the music in their folders, but I could not choose which kids to help nor choose the music they'd play, etc. So I learned how to walk inside a fence.
As always, a test came after the training. I was offered a specific salaried job, one that fit a skill set I knew I had. Should I take it? This particular job was one the rescuer in me would have lapped up like honey, but fools rush in... So I came to You for an answer, and the answer You gave me at least initially was "No, don't take it." You used supernatural means to tell me; You used natural means, but You made it very clear what Your advice was at this juncture. I could obey or not, but I couldn't say You left me guessing. I backed away from it.
And yet, You've been showing me that You have the work of a judge--particularly in the context of prophetic warning--ahead of me. You're working on teaching me how to go about it Your way. I look at the dream I had about warning people of an earthquake, but since they didn't "feel" it in the permanent, main complex of their lives, they did not take the warning seriously. (My husband, too, has had this dream of being sent to warn those who did not want to hear him when he dreamed he was rescuing people off the tail of an airplane. He cried out that it was about to explode; but the first class passengers were taking their time, gathering their belongings, leaving nothing behind, until finally he had to leave them because the fireball erupted at their end of the plane and started flying back toward him. He jumped to the escape slide in time to at least save himself.) What do you do with these calls to warn and rescue?
The first thing I find You're doing with me is to refine my definition of rescuer. I muddy that definition too much with being an enabler of irresponsibility in others. In visiting with a friend, I was able to define for myself a pattern I tend to follow: when I see something before me that I'm fit to do and do well, I rush in and begin to build things that others could help with, even learn from, but because it's easier for me to do them myself, I ignore opportunities to motivate others to do grow, at least in those domains that call for rescue work. So I weaken those around me who should help me and broaden the boundary of my own workload until I make myself so ill and utterly burned out on the assignment that I collapse and have to leave it entirely to recouperate. But this year I've been learning some new ways.
I've been subbing this year, not teaching, just subbing. I've subbed primarily for a woman who is a band director and had some sudden emergency health situations arise in her family that called her out of the workplace pretty frequently. In this subbing assignment, I've had to limit myself. I was not in charge for more than a day or two at a time. I had clear-cut boundaries as to how I could use my skills. I could help kids learn the music in their folders, but I could not choose which kids to help nor choose the music they'd play, etc. So I learned how to walk inside a fence.
As always, a test came after the training. I was offered a specific salaried job, one that fit a skill set I knew I had. Should I take it? This particular job was one the rescuer in me would have lapped up like honey, but fools rush in... So I came to You for an answer, and the answer You gave me at least initially was "No, don't take it." You used supernatural means to tell me; You used natural means, but You made it very clear what Your advice was at this juncture. I could obey or not, but I couldn't say You left me guessing. I backed away from it.
Not until then did I even realize it was the test, nor even the depths of the lesson I'd been learning, but now that I've passed that test, You're showing me how it fits with the larger picture of what You're preparing in me on these other fronts--those of giving appropriate warning where it is needed. I know this is Your next "lesson" because You brought back another dream of portent that made no sense, until now.
In that dream, I was standing beside a fence that was broken, and at the breach stood a very foolish, spotted horse. It was making the breach larger, trying to get out of the fenced area. This horse's motive for destroying the fence was not spite or meanness; it destroyed purely out of ignorance and misplaced curiosity. But it was not a horse that would listen to reason. The only course of action fitting to keep that horse safely inside the fence was to repair the fence itself. Suddenly, I had a tool in my right hand and wire in my left. I repaired the fence with these. When the horse saw the fence repaired, it trotted away back toward the barn. I remember this dream vividly now. Though I had it long ago, still You brought it back. I felt You telling me that this test was a way of proving myself, demonstrate that I'd stay inside a fence myself before I would be fit to mend anyone else's broken fences, before I'd be fit to address anyone else's unintentional transgressions. The offer of a job I'd be good at was the offer of a breach in the fence. My refusing to go through it showed I respected the fence You set for me whether I "had" to remain within its bounds or not.
The next day after I'd come through this test, I reached for my devotional reading and found this:
Mat 7:1 "JUDGE not, that you be not judged.
Mat 7:2 "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
Mat 7:3 "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?
Mat 7:4 "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye?
Mat 7:5 "Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
In that dream, I was standing beside a fence that was broken, and at the breach stood a very foolish, spotted horse. It was making the breach larger, trying to get out of the fenced area. This horse's motive for destroying the fence was not spite or meanness; it destroyed purely out of ignorance and misplaced curiosity. But it was not a horse that would listen to reason. The only course of action fitting to keep that horse safely inside the fence was to repair the fence itself. Suddenly, I had a tool in my right hand and wire in my left. I repaired the fence with these. When the horse saw the fence repaired, it trotted away back toward the barn. I remember this dream vividly now. Though I had it long ago, still You brought it back. I felt You telling me that this test was a way of proving myself, demonstrate that I'd stay inside a fence myself before I would be fit to mend anyone else's broken fences, before I'd be fit to address anyone else's unintentional transgressions. The offer of a job I'd be good at was the offer of a breach in the fence. My refusing to go through it showed I respected the fence You set for me whether I "had" to remain within its bounds or not.
The next day after I'd come through this test, I reached for my devotional reading and found this:
Mat 7:1 "JUDGE not, that you be not judged.
Mat 7:2 "For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
Mat 7:3 "And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?
Mat 7:4 "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye?
Mat 7:5 "Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
This text was analyzed further than many writers take it in the devotional I read. Most stop at berating the reader for having an eyeful of un-addressed plank--which when you think about it is rather ironic--but this devotional went on to say that when a person reaches that point of seeing clearly to judge others as verse 5 describes, the act looks quite different from what we usually call judging. It comes more from the position of being an encourager than anything else. "I see a speck in your eye, and if you have the courage and humility to accept that it is there, you might become hopeless, but don't be discouraged. I had a plank in my own eye, and look at me now! You can deal with this if I could deal with that." It is a very different approach to judging than we usually see. Who equates a judge with being a cheerleader? I don't know which is the chicken and which the egg--the man who can't hear he is wrong or the man who does a poor job of talking to him about it.
Now that I'm in the middle of this unit of study, where do I go from here? I can't say I know exactly, but I do know metaphorically. In the dream, tools were put in my hands to repair a broken fence in a world where everyone else seems to be beating up senseless horses. That's where I'm headed now.
