I know: dreams again. The other night, I dreamt I was at “church.” The building looked nothing like my real church, but like all my dream places it was filled with areas I didn’t know about.
The dream began with me looking for my place to help. Somehow, I thought that there was an urgent need for me somewhere. I checked out each room as I came to it, only to find it well supplied with people cheerfully working there.
As I progressed, I found rooms within rooms where everyone was busy doing many things, some in unusual places. (For example, the men were in the kitchen washing dishes. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen…) Everything was being done and being done well. Everyone seemed happy and content.
Now, my waking self would have seen that situation with sorrow, thinking that there was no place for me, nothing for me to do. But my dream self was awed. The needs of the church were being met. Everyone’s need for significance was met. God’s church was functioning. Because that is how He created it. And each one of us is a part of the whole.
I woke from that dream with the clear feeling that I am not missing my calling. I am not shirking my responsibility. Instead, I am, and have been, exactly where God wants me, doing what He created me to do.
And wherever you are, by God’s grace and by God’s design you are part of the whole, too.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21 New International Version (NIV)