Imprisoned

The other night I dreamt I was in prison. “Life” was very much the same as my current life. I was around other people, in a living room with furniture, a telephone, tables… I even recall a set of sliding glass doors. I was not in a typical cell with bars. I was married to my husband still – not sure what I did to end up in prison, lol, but I was there nonetheless, ha. I spoke to my husband on the phone and I remember thinking, “what if he stops loving me while I’m in here?” “What if he doesn’t wait for me?”  I can hear his voice in my head even as I write this on the other end of the line. I could tell he was slipping away from our relationship. Afterall, I was locked up and he wasn’t… what reason did he have to stay? (Take the marital aspect and christian responsibility out of this thought for now) I hung up the phone and thought to myself how awkward that life is the same on the “inside” and yet all I care about is losing the love of my life who is on the “outside”. Literally, except my husband being around, “living” was the same. Living room, kitchen, like a house just not being able to go outside because it was a prison.

After thinking about this dream, I feel there is a message for us. All of us. We are “living” lives that are the same whether inside or outside a prison. “Prison” can refer to a personal struggle, bad decisions, loneliness, rejection or any other number of options you can insert here. We are more concerned with the people hanging out on the sofa, what is being cooked for dinner, hanging out on the back porch of the sliding glass doors instead of being on the phone with the love of our lives. God is the love of our life and we don’t care that He is slipping away. Now understand, in my dream, my husband was slowly fading away from me but ultimately I had done something to be imprisoned. With God, He isn’t slowly fading away… we are fading from Him. He stays in the same place – we move backwards from Him. If we would stop spending so much time focused on the stuff going on around us and more time on God perhaps we wouldn’t end up imprisoned, stuck in a place of limited freedom. Call it house arrest if you will. You have the ability to live within 4 walls but you can’t get any further.

With God, you can go anywhere in life. He wants to be the love of our lives but we have to not get imprisoned in our own bondage. Let go of it today and know beyond a shadow of a doubt… you don’t have to live the way you are living if you feel stuck. Your previous choices may have you behind bars (figuratively or literally) but in one decision you can change your decision… one 180 degree turn called repentance changes it all. You can repent from a bad life turning to new life or from a series of bad decisions to creating a series of fantastic decisions… but it all begins with you. Don’t let the love of your life slip from your hands.