My Home

I had a dream last night, and it was very significant to me because of various things that have been going on in my life. I don't believe that ANYTHING happens by accident and I thought, just maybe, there is someone else out there who may read about that dream and find it significant, as well.

Having just gotten out of bed and going about my business in the house, I happened to glance out of the window of my bedroom that looks onto the back yard. There, I noticed a child, whom I did not recognize, walking through.  I headed downstairs to go out to the back and find out who the child was and for what reason he was in the yard.

When I left the house from the back door, the presence of the child was no longer a mystery. I saw that every tree in my neighborhood had, apparently, been leveled by a storm. Mind you, this is no small feat, as there are numerous trees, on my street alone, that must be of 100 years of age, more-less...towering hardwoods abound.

I observed that many of my neighbors had already made it outside to begin the cleanup.  Some were gathering fallen branches, others were running saws... one, next door, was commencing with replacing her fence, which had, one might suppose, been completely pulled up and carried away by the same winds that had knocked down all the trees.

As I stood in my back yard, likely looking somewhat like a grade-school student who had just encountered his favorite ball player...eyes wide, mouth hanging open, barely breathing, and fairly statuesque... I was horrified at all of the damage. I could not imagine what it would take, and for how long, to get things back to normal...at least as normal as we would ever know them again. How many chainsaws would I burn through? How much fuel would it take? Will I even be able to get fuel?

In all of my dumbfounded wonder, I made my way over to talk to my neighbor who was already putting in her new fence. All I could utter was to say "It's just amazing."

"Yeah. And to think it all happened so fast, too." she said. "Bout 10 minutes was all it was, but it all sounded like a bunch of gunshots... just one right after the other."

"Gunshots!?" I thought to myself. This only added to my dismay. "What kind of father or husband sleeps through this kind of thing?... A terrible one, that's who. I mean, how am I to ever expect to be able to provide protection for my family in the middle of the night if even THIS kind of thing doesn't rouse me from my apparently-comatose slumber!? What if one of those trees had fallen on the house!? I've read the stories, seen the videos, and even seen the houses where trees have cut through bedrooms like a knife through butter!"

And then my train of thought was halted, quite abruptly...and like a crash-test dummy's rag doll neck whips as a wet noodle in those horrible videos, I felt that I had violently collided with a completely different dimension of reality, as I finally realized what I had wondered to myself in the midst of my vitriolic recital of self-abhorence...

"What if one of those trees had fallen on the house?..."

I was stunned.

As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but mangled wreckage. Hardly anything, even a blade of grass, was left in its place. But here I was referring to damage to my home in a hypothetical sense. Turning, now, to look squarely at my home, I could see a hefty smattering of tree bark and pine needles over the roof and pseudo-plastered to the side of the house... There were bushes destroyed and all of my trees were lying parallel and prostrate, prepared for their transformation into firewood... Firewood that, next winter, would be burned in my fireplace... a fireplace that was still perfectly intact. Those trees that may have threatened to destroy my dwelling place, and of the same type that did a perfectly fine job of annihilating so many other homes, will now be used to provide warmth and comfort for my family.

My house, the structure that provides for one of my family's most basic needs, was complete and whole. It was intact, entirely.

My home was untouched.

And then I woke up.

When I first began my day this morning, I'll admit that this was just a terrible dream. It wasn't until I recalled my dream to my wife this morning, over breakfast, that it became significant.

I don't know about you or where you might be in your life. I don't know what you've been through, but I know I have a good share of times in my life when I feel attacked and endangered... sometimes it's physical, sometimes its relational, sometimes it's spiritual, but this morning, as I polished of the bacon and cheese eggs my wife had fixed for me, and I told her about this dream, I couldn't help feeling that God was reminding me that, even when all of those things happen and I experience all kinds of tumult, He is with me. When I am inadequate, He is ultimate.

My prayer in writing this down and sharing it with you all is that someone in an egregious set of circumstances might happen to give this a read and find some encouragement.  Even if nothing I've written seems to make any difference in your life at all, hopefully the words of Psalm 23 (NLT) will:

 The LORD is my shepherd;

I have all that I need.

 He lets me rest in green meadows;

he leads me beside peaceful streams.

 He renews my strength.

He guides me along right paths,

bringing honor to his name.

 Even when I walk

through the darkest valley,

I will not be afraid,

for you are close beside me.

Your rod and your staff

protect and comfort me.

 You prepare a feast for me

in the presence of my enemies.

You honor me by anointing my head with oil.

My cup overflows with blessings.

 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me

all the days of my life,

and I will live in the house of the LORD

forever.

funeral for a twitter name...

I know that the presses stopped the other night... Bryan Williams did a double-take... Walter Cronkite probably shivered... all because I changed my social media presence from alienwanderer to jasonbterry. 

Obviously, I couldn't exaggerate more, but a couple of people have asked me about it, so let me explain why.

First, the easy part: I changed everything to jasonbterry because I'll always be me. Regardless of where God takes me in this life (barring any potential induction into a witness protection program) that name will always work for me. Being 32, I have a better understanding of the fact that the big thing that God is teaching me right now is not likely to be the overarching theme of my life and learning in 10 years... let's go ahead and go with something timeless... wait, that's weird... my name isn't so amazing that it's timeless, but it's not going to change over time. (And I thought this was gonna be the easy part...)

So why get away from alienwanderer? First, a look at why I went with it, in the first place... from my old blogsite...

the whole “alienwanderer” thing is about our lack of belonging in this world and the journey through which we wander with God as our lead, one step at a time.

While I certainly still strive to have God as my leading beacon, frankly, I've grown to reject the idea that Christians don't have a place in this world, that we don't belong here. Now, before you sharpen your pitchfork, let me explain...

But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
II Peter 3:13

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away
Revelation 21:1-4

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
 “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ
I Corinthians 15:51-56 

There is myriad of other scriptures I could list, but this is sufficient to get the conversation started. The bottom line is this:

I have come to understand the teaching of scripture to be that evil has stolen the world from us and from God. He made the earth and everything in it and declared "it is good" (except for man being alone, which he promptly remedied... that's another train of thought, altogether). Then, evil made its way in through the fruit of the Tree of the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (anyone else think we could've come up with a longer name for that?...such a pitiful effort)... through Adam and Eve's sin in the Garden...

The Garden of Eden... That perfect place where there was full-on communion between God and man.

Everything was right in that place. It was Heaven on Earth in the truest sense of the term, wasn't it? What more could God or man ask for than to be together, fully? But all of that was stolen when sin/evil entered the world through man. Then, scripture tells us what followed...

The Tabernacle...

The Temple...

God, Himself, embodied as a man, Jesus...

The coming of the Holy Spirit to every believer...

God has spent all this time getting closer and closer and closer... longing to be with His people, to dwell among us again... longing for the day when we can be together again as we were in the Garden. 

...And that's where we're going. 

Having redeemed our souls with the blood of Jesus, God is now in close communion with us, spiritually, through the Holy Spirit, but with Jesus' resurrection, He is poised to redeem the earth and all of creation through the coming baptism with fire. Once the Earth is redeemed, with all sin and evil forever purged from its contents, God will, again, dwell with His creation in the fullest sense. 

Our hope is great, for we are not destined to spend eternity as disembodied spirits in some detached, parallel dimension any more than Jesus was only "kinda" resurrected, merely as a spirit.  Jesus had a physical resurrected body of perfection and immortality...raised imperishable...never to die again, and we are destined for the same thing. 

The Earth is destined to put on perfection and immortality, to be imperishable, with never another occurrence of death. 

We are going back to the Garden of Eden. The New Heaven and New Earth are one in the same. God is coming back... coming back to the Garden of Eden, and the place of the Christian is with Him..."That where I am, there you may also be."

I am no alien in this place. I'm just waiting and trusting in God, that He will keep His promise to return and grant us an eternity in His presence... here... in the newly-redeemed Garden of Eden.