On Saturday, I began give the true narrative about a dream that God gave me, one that I feel has a message for each of us today. In Part 1, the message spoke strongly against complacency, but there were another more parts to my dream, with an equally strong message…
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My friends and I then left that middle compartment full of all those people, and we climbed the stairs to an upper compartment. Here we were brought face to face with the pilot. In my dream, I knew the pilot, though he didn’t look like anyone I actually know on Earth. He spoke to me kindly, and I was drawn to him. He had left the flight of his plane to his co-pilot, and he was busy preparing things. He told us all that the plane would crash, and we had to all be ready. If we weren’t, there would be suffering and loss; but if we were all ready, we would be okay. One of my friends asked about all the thousands of passengers on the plane. The pilot looked sad, and he said we would all need to warn them, to help them be prepared. I hung back. I didn’t want to do that… So after giving me some very specific instructions, he and the rest of my friends went back down the stairs to that middle compartment to try and prepare the passengers.
I realized with this scene that the pilot was actually Jesus. He was in charge of the plane, which was the world. He was reminding me that this world as we know it will not go on forever; and if the end comes without us being prepared, there will be death and destruction for each of us. If, however, we are prepared, if we put our trust in Jesus, the Pilot, we will survive the end of the world! The only problem was that all those millions of people in the world do not know their lives are at risk! They are not prepared! They don’t even know Jesus, their Pilot! Jesus is asking each of us to do our part in preparing them!
With the full meaning of the dream now impressed upon my mind, I had to ask myself why the Pilot had allowed me to remain behind while He and the others went below to warn the passengers. Immediately I knew: I had other work He wanted me to do, work that was just as important. We all aren’t, after all, pastors and evangelists; yet we all have a job to do to prepare the world for the end of times.
This message burned on my heart for a couple hours before I remembered what it was I had been told to do: I had been told to record what I had seen and to share it with my fellow believers! Jesus wants us all to recognize that this world is spinning towards its end. He doesn’t want us to close our eyes to the atrocities that are happening; rather, He wants us to be set on fire so that we can do whatever is in our power to save as many of the lost in this world as possible. Not all of us are preachers or evangelists, true enough, but we all have talents that God has given us. Are we using them to our ultimate ability? Or have we buried them under all of the other, more pleasant things in our lives?
I’m afraid that I am often guilty of burying my talents. What will Jesus say when He returns and asks me to give an accountability for what He has given me? Will He say, as He did to the lazy servant in the parable of the Talents, “You wicked and lazy servant! If you knew I harvested crops I didn’t plant and gathered crops I didn’t cultivate, why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.” (Matt. 25:26-27 NLT)
I knew then that I had to share this dream with each of you. There are thousands of hurting people out there. The harvest is ripe, but the workers are few. And those of us who are workers so often choose to ignore the problems in the world, to ignore the fact that this world won’t last forever and that even now, it is rapidly spinning towards its end. God has given each of us talents. Whatever they are, we must dig them up and invest them into the kingdom of God, and we must make this our number one priority!
What are your talents? Has God called you into intercessory prayer? Has He made you a helping hand? Has He asked you to be an evangelist? Do we all make those callings our first priority? I suspect that some of you do, and for that, I commend you. But what about the rest of us? Do the prayer warriors briefly pray for the person’s name that we receive and then forget about the whole thing? Do we volunteer our time at the soup kitchen once a year? Do we only share the gospel when someone comes to us asking for it? And in so doing, we feel we’ve done our part?
What if we were to do more? What if we were to make an effort to get to know the person we are asked to pray for? What if we try to talk to those in the soup kitchen, and maybe start serving there more often? What if we try to support our hurting neighbours? What if we spend time in intercessory prayer for the lost?
If you are already doing more, then again, I commend you. But if you are not, I feel that God is calling each of us to do more with the talent He has given us. I encourage you all to humbly pray and seek the Lord and ask Him how you can better use your calling that He has given you to serve a hurting world. Only then will we merit God’s praise: “Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!” (Matthew 25:23 NLT)
Prayer: Lord, help us to love others enough to do our part. Help us to break out of our complacent apathy and truly care for the lost and hurting world. May we make the callings you’ve given us our first priority so that the everyone can hear the name of the Lord and be drawn to Him!
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two adult boys, Author — “Aboard God’s Train — A Journey With God Through the Valley of Cancer”, Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, The Illustrator, a four-times-a-week internet newsletter, and the Sermon Illustrator website, all with Answers2Prayer Ministries.
(To access the entire two-part mini-series, “The Plane”, please click here!)
