Recently I was interviewed by our local newspaper. The editor sent questions, and I spent the entire weekend trying to figure out how to answer them.
The questions forced me to look back over my life and try to explain it to a complete stranger. In some way, it forced me to think about the meaning and purpose of my life.
Here are some of the questions I was asked; think about how you would answer them.
Editor: How did you discover spiritual growth? What is a spiritual adventurer?
“I call myself a spiritual adventurer, because I chose to learn how to be led by the Holy Spirit. As a result I have experienced many transformative encounters with the living God and as a result, I have had the opportunity to share my stories with many people both in the United States and Europe.
“My journey started in 1970, when a crisis thrust me into a spiritual quest: our young son was diagnosed with leukemia. Nothing in life—not my church nor nursing—had prepared me for this. I simply lacked the inner resources to handle this. I had one driving thought, if I could just find a living God then perhaps I can survive the unthinkable, the death of my child.
“Thankfully, I met someone who showed me the missing ingredient: faith in a God who cannot lie. As soon as real faith entered my heart, a light turned on inside me—and it has never been extinguished. In the years since, I’ve learned how to use my faith and to rely on the Holy Spirit, our Helper, in this sometimes perilous adventure, even in the eventual loss of our son.”
Editor: How did you discover healing?
“At one point, I became aware that many of my thoughts and emotions—rejection, unloved, unimportant, jealousy, self-hatred, and many fears—were not life-giving. I asked the Lord to help me: I dreamed that I was lying on an operating table with my body split wide open, filled with rottenness. Hands were packing me with salt.
“Recognizing my broken condition, I surrendered myself into hands of the Great Physician. During the next seven years, God healed my wounds and freed me from three powerful lies that had been woven into the center of my personality since I was two.
“Growing up, I’d seen myself as like an empty box, with nothing valuable inside of it. But I’d prayed, ‘Lord make me bigger.’ As I emerged from these transformative experiences, I was given a new image of myself: I am like a treasure chest, packed full of treasure.
“In 1986, as a result of these changes, friends asked me to teach them what I had learned. So my life took on greater meaning and purpose as I began to help others become more spiritually alive and whole.”
Editor: What about dreams?
“What can I say about the power of dreams in just a few sentences? Simply stated, dreams are a gift from God—even nightmares: they are trying to help us solve our problems, give us wise counsel, direction, and guidance, open us to new possibilities, and comfort us and heal our wounds.
“In some way, my life is a testimony to the power of living one’s dreams. I would never have started my first small groups; I would not have discovered my gifts and talents; I would not have conducted retreats in Europe; I would not have a European radio program; I would not have been healed of destructive attitudes; I would not have gone to college and grad school, nor become a Christian counselor and mentor of others. ”
Editor: How do we learn to interpret them?
“Most dreams convey their messages indirectly using pictures and images in a figurative and imaginative way—through symbolic language. This is the language Jesus employed to convey His spiritual truths. By using symbolic language, Jesus showed us that effective communication often requires skirting around the conscious mind to engage the heart directly.
“We must learn how to open up our symbolic dream communications for their meaning to be revealed to us. This requires some effort on our part. The Hebrew words for interpretation suggest that a dream needs to be cracked open in order to understand its obscure message (Judg 7:15, Gen 40:8).
“We can learn to crack open a dream and discover its hidden treasure if we are willing to learn how the language of symbolism works.
“But in my experience, we can benefit from our dreams, just by learning a few simple non-interpretative strategies, like this one: what emotion did you feel in the dream? And where in life are you experiencing this emotion now?”
Listen to my audio recording
To help you learn more about dreams, I’ve attached this audio recording I made in 2012: “God speaks through dreams, are you listening?” As I replayed it today, I felt my faith in a living God who wants to speak to us being lifted up anew.