Free Image by Pete
Linforth from Pixabay
I was told that
Alzheimer’s medication[1]
will stir the pot of dreams. I thought, go
ahead and try…I’m a man who has not had more than a handful of dreams in 80
years of sleeping! Sometimes I wish
I hadn’t dared my sleep governor so boldly.
I’m having dreams of
two different natures; one kind is somewhat mild, insignificant, but pleasant,
and the other is weird or simply strange, but darker and powerfully
dramatic. I’ve decided, due to the
disturbing nature of the intense, darker dreams, whatever my mind is trying to
tell me, or urge me to work through, I am going to welcome the pleasant ones as
amusement, and be careful with the darker versions; they might be deep issues
repressed for years, or the anguish of grief making sense of how to wrestle
with my losses in life. Whatever they
all are, they happen! And I dreamed
again last night; I not only dreamed, but I also remembered it…in detail
Normally I dream about people and places,
with conversations and things that easily identify either issues or other-worldly
concepts that bug me. Some make me wake-up
with a smile on my face.
Last night was not one of those dreams! Last night was a full-on, pitch-black, you
think you know how dark humanity can be?….Well, take a look at THIS kind of
dream!
The Dream
The dream was of a
river running through a mountainous region.
I was standing on one side of the river, and I could see a factory on
the other side. There were tall
smokestacks billowing white clouds of smoke from whatever was going on inside
the buildings. To my right was a high
bridge/trestle over the river.
Without any kind of transition, suddenly I was inside the building at the very point where the company’s product was being processed. I could not see anything other than the “result” end of the process, a rather small black box with tubes running into one side, and a white dot on the other side where the “run-off” wastewater trickled out. That milky-white waste was thick and sticky. How I knew that with
out touching the stuff is a mystery (and that is the part of which my brain seems to want to wrestle and, perhaps, drive me crazy).
Another “how did I
know this” moment occurred in the next instant, when I realized that milky
white wastewater was as toxic as the remains of Chernobyl’s reactor
meltdown. And at that moment the scene
of my nighttime wondering fast-forwarded to the Nobel Prize that company’s
scientist got for figuring-out how to turn a milky-white wastewater, toxic
runoff from an unknown manufacturing process, into a life-saving elixir that
changed the course of history.
The Name - Andijic
Most of my dreams
are specific to places, people, and conversation; this dream lacked all
three. I did not know where the place
was, nor did I see any people, or hear any conversation. The only specific which emerged from my
night’s strange adventure was the name of that life-saving drug, Andijic.
This morning I
shared the whole strange episode with my son, Jason, and he immediately Googled
“Andijic”[2].
Here is a summary
of the search:
Andijic
is a common alternative spelling or transcription of the South Slavic surname
Andrijić (or Anđić / Andjić). The name is of Slavic origin and functions
as a patronymic surname. The suffix "-ić" means "son
of" or "descendant of".
It is derived from the given name Andrija (the Slavic equivalent
of Andrew).
Andrija
stems from the Greek name Andreas, which means "manly,"
"brave," or "strong". Therefore, the surname
historically translates to "son of the brave/manly one" or
"descendant of Andrew".
There were some
notable brave men listed, such as Marko Andrijić (died c. 1507): A
famous master stonemason and builder from the Republic of Ragusa (modern-day
Dubrovnik, Croatia) known for his work on the Korčula Cathedral, and others. (See Wikipedia.com)
To be clear, I had
never heard the name/word Andijic prior to “seeing” it in my dream. My wife had a cousin named Andy, and there
was also an Uncle Andy on my mother’s side of the family. I knew Andy Svatek in high school, and I
watched Amos and Andy on the black and white twelve-inch screen of our TV in
the late 1950’s. But Andijic
is a new one on me!
Analyzing this
dream is a real challenge; there is only one possibility I can tease-out from
it, and it takes leaping-the-Grand-Canyon kind of faith to get it. Here’s my 3-Part proposal:
1. Since
I cannot recall ever hearing “Andijic” spoken, or having seen it written (that
I know of), I believe God put it in my mind last night for a reason that will
only be known when someone else hears it or sees it in this journal.
2. The
specific sights (factory, bridge, river, black box, white dot, and the
mysterious milky-white, and very toxic wastewater) serve as metaphors which are
very important to my beliefs. (we will see the list below).
3. I’m
not really crazy (or any more so than usual).
Seeing the Sights
I believe the dream
is a proclamation of God’s Gospel message.
It is the same kind of object lesson employed by the Old Testament
prophet, Jeremiah, when God instructed him to go buy some new underwear.
This is what the Lord said to me: “Go
and buy yourself a linen undergarment and put it on. But do not put it in
water.” So I bought underwear
as the Lord instructed me and put it on. Then the word of the Lord came to me a
second time: “Take the
underwear that you bought and are wearing, and go at once to the Euphrates and
hide it in a rocky crevice.” So I went and hid it by the
Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me. A long time later the Lord said to me,
“Go at once to the Euphrates and get the underwear that I commanded you to hide
there.” So I went to the Euphrates and dug up the underwear
and got it from the place where I had hidden it, but it was ruined—of no use at
all. Then the word of the
Lord came to me: “This is what the Lord says: Just like this I will ruin the great pride of
both Judah and Jerusalem. These evil people, who refuse to
listen to me, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who have
followed other gods to serve and bow in worship—they will be like this
underwear, of no use at all. Just as underwear clings to one’s
waist, so I fastened the whole house of Israel and of Judah to me”—this is the
Lord’s declaration—“so that they might be my people for my fame, praise, and
glory, but they would not obey. Jeremiah
13:1-11
Simple story here;
Israel was stubborn, full of pride, very sinful. This made God angry (he does get angry over
sin, you know). God told Jeremiah to
show them what their stubborn sinfulness was going to do to them. That nation, like our nation, was like an
undergarment, wrapped close to the Owner’s heart…meant to stay close
(obedient).
When they got away
(like the garment buried near the stream) they ruined themselves, became
useless! The question goes begging here,
just how close is America to God’s heart? And if you give the right answer, you also
know why America is mired-deep in a mess today!
So, how does that
match up with my dream? The river
is the dividing line between Earth and Heaven.
I, a human, am on one side, Heaven is on the other side (but not for
long; at my age I’ll see Him sooner rather than later!).
The dim view of the dark mountains and the
black box are a mystery, as is the milky white toxic runoff. They represent humankind’s living in a toxic
culture, full of sin and death. There is
a dim, almost imperceivable view of the goodness of God working behind the
scenes in everything happening all throughout history, including the history we
are living in today. We just don’t
understand what it’s all about.
The Interpretation of the Sights we See in the Dream
In my dream I saw a
mountain, factory, black box, and strange wastewater runoff. It’s a picture of our culture, angry, raging
at God, daring God, despising one another, and standing, soaked in the sin of every
opposite position you can imagine from what God told us to be to each
other. He told us to be kind, generous,
forgiving, gentle, encouraging each other, and to put an exclamation point at
the end, Jesus came to us and said You love others just like I have loved
you!
But it is also a
picture of how God entered that cesspool of a culture two thousand years
ago. He was just another Jewish baby,
part of the wastewater runoff of unimportant people in Bethlehem. The Jews were toxic to the rulers in society,
so they nailed Him to a cross, and His blood covered the ground; goodbye to
another nuisance!
That was Friday
afternoon; then came Sunday morning. And,
what seemed toxic wastewater, emerged from the black box of sin and death, and
we beheld the white dot of forgiveness and redemption. That water wasn’t “waste” at all; it turned
out to be the life-saving medicine for the sins of the whole world.
The toxicity of
human deeds we manufacture in our dim view of life’s eternal and holy purpose
can never be fixed with mere human manipulation of governments and
warfare. There is only one solution for
sin – Jesus! He was Andijic in my dream,
Andrew, the brave, strong stonemason – the One who knew everything about being
the cornerstone of God’s Kingdom – He, who the builders of earthly kingdoms
rejected, is the chief cornerstone of our hope and salvation.[3]
My friends, you are not the entire population of the world, nor our country, nor your hometown, nor even your family. You are simply one person who cannot turn the tide of everything going on in the world. But you are also like me in that dream, standing on the cesspool side of the universe, looking through a sin-darkened cloud toward that place where God is calling. It may seem like a tiny, white spot on a huge black box, but His nail-scarred hands are stretched-out ready to welcome you beyond that veil. He was victorious over sin and death on the cross (in my dream, He was the scientist who turned the wastewater into a blessing), and He offers eternal life.
However you spell His name, Jesus, Yeshua, Jehovah, Christ, Lord, Messiah, or even Andijic, say yes to Him; open your heart and life to His salvation, and trust Him for the eternity He’s promised for you. You may not be able to change the entire world, but if you let Him change your heart and life, you’ll be surprised how differently you’ll see and respond to this world’s ways; your part in this world will change, and Heaven will rejoice.
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