Dream and Re-Dream

The other night I kept "re-dreaming" something over and over. I have had recurring dreams before, but usually in the dream I revisit, I am trying to change the ending. This dream was not like that. It was the same dream with the same result every time and each time I would wake up wondering what it meant and then fall asleep and dream it again. It was a dream about running a race, and each time I would end the race and be declared the winner. And then each person who finished the race after me would also be declared the winner. I remember thinking this is a great dream--unless you are the first winner, and then it sort of feels like a nightmare--and yet, it doesn't.

After a few repeats of this, I began to wonder if maybe God was trying to tell me something. Maybe I have been treating my life like too much of a competition--like I need to be better than other people in order to be a winner. My brain is still playing with this. Wouldn't it be just like God to say to me, "you are the winner!"even when I can clearly see that I wasn't the winner? Such a thing would make perfect sense to Him, wouldn't it?

Isn't He the same God who said something like, "the first shall be last," and also something like, "you must look up before you can see what is down?" Well, maybe those aren't direct quotes, but I think the essence of the meaning is correct.

Jesus taught about how it is perfectly fair to pay two men the same wage as was promised, even if one man worked a whole day and one worked only an hour. He said things like, "if someone asks to borrow your jacket, let him have your shirt too." Such a strange way of thinking--if you're human.

We work so hard to be first and be best and have more and do more, and somehow we think that is what defines us as winners. But I think we have it all wrong. I think God may have been trying to tell me in my re-dream that none of what I do makes me a winner. I am a winner because God declared me a winner the moment I professed my faith to be in Him. Not that there will be no losers--there will be losers because some will not received God's free gift; some will take their eyes off the prize, which is Jesus. But those of us who remain faithful? First place winners! Every one. Wow! Sort of bends your mind, doesn't it?