Watch for the Butler

Last night I dreamed I and a small group of others were planning to sneak into a palatial house to steal something from an evil organization headquartered there. The emotional tenor of the dream was sad, almost hopeless. The task seemed unlikely to succeed, perhaps impossible, because of the power and control of those we were opposing.

Sure enough, before we were even inside, the butler opened the door and identified us. He knew exactly what we were trying to do. We were found out before we even began.

But then he smiled. He didn't turn us in, or take us captive. He led us into the household, up circuitous carpeted stairs and down a long hallway, to a very different place from where we'd hoped to go to carry out the theft.

It turned out that he too opposed the household, and was subverting it from the inside, under the guise of one of its most trusted servants. He had been waiting for us. Rather than helping us steal anything, though, he set us to work doing other tasks he determined--things that led to other things, endless secret projects to subvert the power and control of the household. Some of the tasks were hard to understand, but they linked strategically over time into an elaborate, brilliant plan.

That plan of his design would prove far more significant and damaging to the household than our initial simplistic theft, doomed to fail. Only with the butler's help were we able to infiltrate the place, be kept safe and undetected, and be given the information necessary to overthrow the household completely and finally.

After waking up, memory of the past few days returned, and I realized without question the origin of the dream. The day before, the Holy Spirit had been much on my mind. I had been asking Him for help and for courage to face the daunting, seemingly impossible tasks I perceived needed doing in the world around me. And in the preceding days, I'd also been encountering unexpected people and circumstances that revealed amazing opportunities I never could have planned, opportunities to build the coming benevolent kingdom and subvert the present kingdom of darkness.

My sleeping imagination had synthesized a deep truth for me. Most of the things I initially feel need doing, often darkened by hampered hopes, are what He uses just to get me to that ominous door. That is where He meets me--and the rest of us who share the mission.

He brings us into the presence of "enemies" (rarely human ones), and teaches us the when and where and how of the intricacies of bringing His kingdom. It is detail work--exactly the right word spoken, the right wire cut, a certain beam removed, to topple the prisons that hold His loved ones, and set an entire world free.

The dream itself felt like a secret message, an encoded communique of encouragement to keep moving forward watching for those covert rendezvous, where the mission as I understand it may change drastically. Thank God it's usually deeper and infinitely more complex and coordinated than the simplistic things I formulate in my own understanding.