Missed Appointment

Photo by Ben White 2016

I dreamed that I was going to meet my father in New York City, on York Avenue near the Cornell Medical College campus where I received my medical degree. I arrived early in the day and decided to spend some time sightseeing before our dinner engagement.

Although Manhattan is not known for its amusement parks, somehow I ended up in one. The ride I was on reminded me of a creaky, dated old ride called “Land Before Time” in Blackpool Tower, England, featuring chipped, faded replicas of dinosaurs and sound effects of “roars” that sounded more like mild indigestion.

Suddenly the car I was in veered off course and traveled uphill to a carpeted area behind the seats in what looked like a stage theater. A woman I didn’t recognize was surprised to see me and said, “You’re not supposed to be up here!”

“Well, I didn’t come here on purpose – it’s where the car took me,” I explained. “Looks like the same thing happened to them,” I said, pointing to a young couple in a similar car.

“How do we get out of here?” I asked.

“You can’t just leave, because you’re in the middle of the ride, which seems to be out of order, and you could get lost inside. I can give all of you a lift to wherever you need to go once I’m done here.”

But when she said that wouldn’t be for several hours, I decided to take my chances finding an exit from the ride. As I remembered passing what appeared to be an emergency exit, I backtracked until I eventually found it and was out on the street. Manhattan at dusk, apparently at rush hour, as the sidewalks and streets were packed with people rushing in opposite directions, and horns were blaring to protest the traffic jam.

A street sign said Lexington Ave., which was familiar territory for me back in medical school, but the cross street was 1917 St., which I had never even heard of before. I tried asking for directions from passersby – many different people from all walks of life – but they were all too busy to assist me.

Most ignored me and rushed away, and one elegant, middle-aged woman in a fur hat and suit trimmed with a fur collar and cuffs said, “I can’t help you, and you’ll never find a taxi at this hour.”

I became increasingly panicked as it was getting late; I had no idea where I was or how to get to our dinner destination; and there was no way to contact my father as I had no phone.

I awoke with my heart racing and my stomach sinking with regret over not being able to see my father, who passed away decades ago. Wondering about the dream’s meaning, I realized that it concerned a nightly engagement I have with my Heavenly Father to seek His face in prayer. This was symbolized as a dinner engagement, as He knocks on the door of our hearts, and if we answer, He will come in and dine with us (Revelation 3:20).

Once we are saved by trusting in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) as the only Way to Heaven (John 14:6), what a blessing to have a promised seat at the Lord’s table, where we can feast on His Word!

Although I always intend to keep this “dinner engagement” with our Father, sometimes the stresses, distractions, and time drains of the day lead to rushed “fast food” crammed in just before bedtime, instead of a leisurely banquet beginning at the appointed time and continuing until I am fully nourished.

The apostle Paul says we are to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and David reminds us to meditate on God’s Word, day and night (Psalm 119:148, etc.). It is good to schedule a designated time for quiet communion with our Lord, but that does not mean that we should ignore Him the rest of the day!

In the dream, I arrived early in the city where I was to meet my Father, near a place of higher education, symbolizing the wisdom and knowledge to be found only in His Word (Psalm 119:105). Yet instead of preparing myself for this divine appointment by listening to His still, small voice (1 Kings 19:12), confessing my sins so that my prayers would not be hindered (1 John 1:9; 1 Peter 3:7), and meditating on Scripture, I allowed myself to become distracted by worldly pleasures.

The amusement park symbolized time wasted on frivolous pursuits, more appropriate for my old life before I was saved (hence the aged appearance and sound effects of the ride). The dinosaur theme may have been a warning to avoid evil lest I fall prey to Satan’s traps (Ephesians 6:11; 1 Peter 5:8), but the crumbling dinosaurs and their feeble cries had no such effect, perhaps because my conscience was seared (1 Timothy 4:2) by ignoring such warnings before.

As often happens in life when we allow ourselves to become distracted by meaningless pursuits, Satan uses this opportunity to carry us where we had no intention of going. King David discovered this when his idleness on his roof one evening while his troops were in the midst of battle led to the sins of lust, adultery, deceit, and even murder (2 Samuel 11).

In the dream, my visiting an amusement park instead of preparing for my meeting with my Father led to delay, losing my bearings, getting trapped in the world system, and missing my appointment altogether. I couldn’t find my way; I had no help from those in the world, and I could not even contact my Father, as I had no phone.

Thankfully, we don’t need a phone or even an appointment to contact our Heavenly Father. But unconfessed sin in our heart – including the sin of idolatry allowing worldly pleasures or other distractions to come between us and God – can hinder our prayers and make Him seem distant, although He is very near to us (Acts 17:27). Sometimes our prayers go unanswered because we are asking for what we want, instead of in accordance with His perfect will, or even worse, because we fail to ask at all (James 4:1-3).

In the dream, in crowded Manhattan at rush hour, I found myself at Lexington Ave., which was familiar to me. The name “Lexington” means “Town of the New Law” – perhaps a reference to the new law of liberty in Christ (James 1:25). Christ’s followers were freed from the Mosaic laws of temple worship, for Christ Himself was the perfect, complete Sacrifice paying our sin debt in full (Hebrews 10:10; 1 John 4:10). Now we have direct access to the Father, just as the nine-foot-thick veil separating the people from the Holy of Holies was split in two at the crucifixion, top to bottom, for God in the flesh came from Heaven to earth to give us that access (Matthew 27:51; Hebrews 9:7-15).

But I still could not find my way in the dream, because I was at the intersection of Lexington Ave and “1917 St.,” which does not exist. I believe this number refers to the date of the Russian Revolution and the darkest days of World War I, a time of rebellion, chaos, destruction and devastation.

I believe the dream is warning me to keep my priorities straight, always giving Jesus Christ and His law of liberty the pre-eminence, so that I will keep my divine appointments with our Father, communing with Him through prayer and mediation on His Word. At His table can I be fed with wisdom, avoiding Satan’s traps and the destruction he desires! 

© 2023 Laurie Collett

Take Out the Trash!

Photo by Miran Hladnik2012

I dreamed that my family and I were vacationing in Tuscany and were staying in an old farmhouse. Our daughter-in-law had collected a basketful of flowers from a neighboring field, which smelled like lavender but resembled miniature roses with delicate, triangular petals in spiral array, rather than tiny buds on a spike as is usual for lavender.

Our son called her to see something he had spotted outside, so she went outdoors and my husband joined them. I assumed they would only be a few minutes, so I began dinner preparations. We were planning to make cioppino, or a stew from local mussels, clams, and other shellfish.

I thought it would be handy to have a place to discard the shells, and I spotted a small, stainless steel trash can in the corner and placed it in the center of the long, wooden trestle table. It looked out of place, so I thought using some of the flowers as a centerpiece would help it look more festive. I found a small silver bowl, tucked a few of the blossoms inside, and nestled some lavender-colored tissue paper around them.

My husband returned, took one look at the table, and exclaimed, “The trash can is in the middle of the table!” He removed it and set it back in its usual corner, but I explained that we needed a container for the shells and put it back in the center of the table.

Still trying to be helpful, my husband began to fiddle with the centerpiece. Much to my dismay, he was plucking out all the bits of tissue paper I had so carefully arranged.

Then my daughter-in-law entered just in time to question, “Why is the garbage can on the table?” and “What happened to the lavender?” She removed the trash can and the centerpiece from the table, replacing them with the straw basket filled with the blooms she had gathered from the field that morning.

I had to admit it looked and smelled lovely, and it was a relief to no longer have the trash can as an eyesore and point of contention in the place of honor. Suddenly I remembered that dinner was in the oven, but when I opened the oven door I was shocked that there was no cioppino, only a reheated leftover piece of fish from last night’s dinner that was unlikely to feed even one of us.

As I awoke and considered the symbolism of the dream, I realized that the family dining table should be not only the center of family fellowship, but also a key gathering place for our fellowship with Christian family and with Christ Himself. As He broke bread and drank wine with His apostles, He asked them to remember Him every time they did this (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24).

Specifically, Jesus asked them, and by extension all of us who are born-again (John 3:3-8), to remember His body, broken for us, and His blood, shed for us, to be the perfect sacrifice to reconcile sinful man with Holy God (Hebrews 7:27; 9:26; 10:12). Later, by rising from the dead on the third day, He proved that He is God, so that all who trust Him can have eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:1-4; John 3:16).

Each time we gather to break bread, whether as a family, in Christian fellowship, or at the Lord’s Table in the sacrament of communion, we should honor Christ as the center (Colossians 1:18). But how often do we let the garbage in our lives, whether sins, weights (Hebrews 12:1), or works of our own hands that become idols (Psalm 135:15; Isaiah 2:8), take His rightful place?

Family meals are best when they begin with prayer and are accompanied by conversation showing interest in and support for our loved ones, and even by discussion of spiritual matters. Yet the growth of technology has been an effective tool of Satan to disrupt such fellowship and communion, first by radio and television and now by “smart” phones.

I believe the flowers in the dream symbolized Jesus Christ, for the fragrance of lavender is as close as we may get on earth to experiencing His royal perfume (Isaiah 61:3; Exodus 30:37; Song of Solomon 1:3; 3:6), and the shape of the blossoms were like the Rose of Sharon (Song of Solomon 2:1). The triangular petals were a reference to the Trinity (Matthew 28:19), for in Christ we have the fullness of the Godhead bodily, including the Holy Spirit and God the Father (Colossians 2:9).

He gave Himself freely so that all who seek Him will find Him and be saved (Jeremiah 29:13; Deuteronomy 4:29; Proverbs 8:17; Matthew 7:7-8), just as in the dream my daughter-in-law freely gathered the blossoms from the field and brought them home to share with us and adorn our table. Upon being saved, it should be our delight to share Christ with everyone, just as it was for the Samaritan woman at the well, and to make Him the focus of our fellowship and lives (John 4:28-29).

But I had instead allowed trash to occupy that place of honor. Refuse can look attractive in worldly terms, as the apostle Paul explained when he said that all his former achievements, education, and religious zeal were no better than dung in comparison with what he had gained through His relationship with Christ (Philippians 3:4-14).

My attempts to “improve” the natural beauty of the lavender by putting the blossoms in a silver bowl and arranging scraps of tissue around them may represent mankind’s vain attempts to be saved by the works of his hands, whether exclusively, as in the case of Cain who offered God his best crops rather than the blood sacrifice that God commanded (Genesis 4:2-7), or added to Christ’s finished work on the cross (John 19:30).

An example of the latter is the Mormon doctrine of “We do our best, and Jesus does the rest.” Any attempt to add to Jesus’ perfect, completed sacrifice is an insult to God and His Son. It would be like receiving a freely given gift of a Rolls-Royce and then insisting that we pay one penny toward the purchase price.

We are saved by grace through faith, not by works (Ephesians 3:8-9). Jesus Christ is beautiful and perfect in His righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30), and we should not attempt to gild the Lily of the valleys (Song of Solomon 2:1).

The trash can in the dream would not have been needed at all had I not planned to serve shellfish. When the apostle Peter had a vision commanding Him to eat unclean animals (Acts 10:9-17), was God really recommending that he abandon the dietary laws given by God to Moses? Many believe that to be true, and certainly we do not keep such laws in order to be saved, but rather it is a matter of individual conscience within our Christian liberty (1 Corinthians 10:25-33).

Peter interpreted the vision as God telling him to no longer consider the Gentiles unclean, but to freely share the Gospel with them  (Acts 10:28; 34-35). Therefore he may have continued to keep Mosaic dietary law, and certainly he would not have been wrong to do so. God in His infinite wisdom gave His chosen people these dietary and hygiene laws to preserve their health, and we can today confirm from modern science the benefits of His prescribed practices.

I personally avoid shellfish and pork because of the health benefits of God’s dietary laws, so my serving shellfish in the dream may have symbolized rebellion against God’s will for my life. When we stray from God’s perfect plan, there will be consequences. In the dream, my attempt to serve others with a dish that was not God’s best was thwarted, and I was embarrassed as I pulled a skimpy leftover piece of fish from the oven.

But a small morsel of food served with love and enjoyed in fellowship is better than a banquet eaten in the midst of strife and discontent (Proverbs 15:17; 17:1). Jesus Himself enjoyed a piece of fish in His resurrected body (Luke 24:42), and the miracles of the loaves and fishes (Matthew 14:14-21; 15:32-38) during His earthly ministry reminds me that when we honor Him, He will take our meager offerings and multiply them to nourish all who gather in His Name!  

© 2018 Laurie Collett