I don’t really know if this is something that a lot of people experience or not, but it is something different that had never experienced prior to my recent transformation. I now wake up at odd hours after spending time in prayer in my sleep. Sometimes in a dream, I’m praying, usually with family or another coffee disciple, but just as often, I’m just spending quiet alone time with my Lord. In both of these situations, I can pray like nobody’s business. Man if I could only do in public what I do in my sleep…. I’ve done a lot of public speaking in my life, but public prayer, not so much. So let’s just say, not my best work. But when I’m asleep, I’m so full of wisdom, the words flow through me like the river of life. Prophetic and poetic. I wish I could record it.
Last night was the pinnacle. Topic after topic. Prayer after prayer. By 4:00 am I can no longer sleep. I’m sitting in the dark with my phone writing down everything I can remember. Just little thoughts of some things I need to pursue. Verses that I know but don’t yet know why He reminded me of them. Others I can’t place but now have a renewed meaning. Observations about society I see differently now. And the one I can’t get away from today, the normalization of the attacking of our savior, Jesus.
It’s becoming so common place that many times now, I have it thrust upon me by surprise because I heard nothing about it in the media. Hopefully it was the story of the week and I just missed it and not that we Christians are just giving up.
Last night, my wife and I watched a movie that was released months ago We had seen the first installment and found it entertaining a few years back. I wondered why I hadn’t heard much fanfare about the sequel. It was dreadful compared to the first. I felt disappointed at best and at worst, angry that I had allowed myself to see it. In The Devil Wears Prada 2, the sacrilegious scene about the Last Supper was appalling. If you haven’t seen it yet, DONT! Let me spare you some sanity. There is a scene where the main characters are looking at Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. She then states that in this particular painting, that de Vinci did not paint a halo around the ‘central character’s head’ because the artist wanted to present that he was a man and therefore fallible! How disrespectful. The central character? Maybe this called me to pray. Not at first but while literally sleeping on it.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” - John 13:34.
Why is this so hard. Someone actually wrote the lines. Someone else spoke them. Someone filmed them. Someone else edited it. I can go on and on. Every single person involved in delivering this to the masses is complicit. Yet we are commanded to love them. Ok. Calm now.
First of all, for the record, it is widely accepted that Da Vinci didn’t omit the halo to say Jesus was a sinner or a failure. Instead, he wanted to emphasize the genuine human drama and emotion of the apostles’ betrayal. But what is the most concerning is the normalization of what to me seems like an attack on Christianity.
Am I alone in this? If I’m going off the deep end please tell me. My faith is in Him! Let me know your thoughts!
Let’s grab a coffee. The Shepherd is speaking.