1 Peter 1

Pandemic Dreams

Posted on by Betsy

My pandemic dreams are getting wilder and louder. Some mornings I wake up exhausted by my dream-saturated sleep. Even in my tiredness, I am grateful for the silence that wakefulness brings. My deep consciousness is flooded with turbulence. I have read that others are experiencing this as well. How about you?

We understand that dreams are the mind’s way of unburdening itself of the daily pressures and disturbances that get shoved away throughout the day so that we can focus on what is at hand. Some posit that dreams are a form of memory processing, or are a type of protective act, i.e. a way to prepare the brain for danger and challenges. In any case, it stands to reason that the current pandemic would result in people having vivid dreams all night long.

In 1 Peter, we read a beautiful picture of life being ”a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God.” That image is profound for us pandemic people. Oh, how we long to replace our deep consciousness of despair with the deep consciousness of God’s peace!

And I like that it reminds us that this is a journey, which implies that there is a destination. I am ready, as I’m sure you are, for us to ARRIVE at the end. Let me off this bus!!

Even better, we find God on this journey:

1 Peter 1 (The Message)

17 You call out to God for help and he helps—he’s a good Father that way. But don’t forget, he’s also a responsible Father, and won’t let you get by with sloppy living.

18-21 Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ’s sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought.

YOU are not an afterthought to God. You call out to him for help, and he responds like the good, responsible father that he is. He has removed us from our sloppy, dead-end, empty-headed way of life.

Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. It’s because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God.

Don’t miss that…we have a future in God. This is comforting news in the midst of recent information that we might see a spike in COVID cases in the fall. A second wave may be imminent, and we are so weary of the first. But hang on. We have a future in God.

22-25 Now that you’ve cleaned up your lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives depended on it. Your new life is not like your old life. Your old birth came from mortal sperm; your new birth comes from God’s living Word.

What must change immediately is that we must “love one another as if our lives depend on it.” We are utterly failing at this. The vitriol, anger, and downright hatred that we see every day on our streets, on the news, and especially on social media must stop. We condemn ourselves with every post.

Just think: a life conceived by God himself! That’s why the prophet said,

The old life is a grass life,
    its beauty as short-lived as wildflowers;
Grass dries up, flowers droop,
    God’s Word goes on and on forever.

This is the Word that conceived the new life in you.

Today is a day to seek the deep consciousness of God. Today is an opportunity to allow God’s Word of hope, salvation, and unconditional love to bring forth a new life in us.

THIS is what I dream of: a world-wide community unified as one body, loving each other through this pandemic, and offering only words of comfort and peace to each other until this is over.

What do you dream of? Are you experiencing disturbing dreams right now? Do you wake up tired? Do you long for peace?

Listen. Stay in the Word, and get out of the world. Find ways, especially at bedtime, to turn everything off and go deep into the consciousness of God. Pray like you’ve never prayed before.

God will deliver us, of that I am sure. The Word will bring new life in us.

Sweet Dreams by Becca Ziegler

Every Kind of Aggravation

Posted on by Betsy

We are living in the days of every kind of aggravation. In all of my years of living, I have never experienced this level of sustained aggravation before. There were certainly times of grief, trial, exhaustion, and all manner of challenges, but not like this. How about you? I won’t even attempt to list them, but just a snapshot of trying to buy groceries once a week should give you a picture. Spoiler alert: there is a lot of WHINING in this next section.

I don’t report to work early on Sundays anymore since we are now taping the service on Thursdays. That should make for a nice, slow Sabbath. But in the early days of the pandemic, when I was still driving to church on Sunday to do Facebook Live, I discovered that my local Publix opened at 8AM and was very uncrowded…and the toilet paper was restocked every Saturday night.

So now I get out early on Sundays just to shop. That is the beginning of all kinds of aggravation. Mostly it is my N95 mask and disposable gloves that aggravate the heck out of me. By the time I speed through the aisles, being careful to follow the one-way arrows and social distancing, my claustrophobia is peaking and my hands are literally dripping with sweat. And even though I have a concise list, I spend time waiting my turn to go down an aisle that already has a looky-loo leisurely standing in front of an array of products and seemingly reading the ingredient list of each one. She can see me waiting (I dare not pass her) yet she lingers…and ends up not putting anything in her cart.

A friend and I were commiserating about the fact that we used to enjoy shopping and found it relaxing. Now it is like entering a war zone of mine fields, and your heart is racing to just get out. Not to mention all the shortages of products, resulting in having to think on the fly of different meals based on what is actually available. OK, RANT OVER.

Our passage from 1 Peter takes us away from whatever is aggravating us right now, and reminds us that we have been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for:

1 Peter 1 (The Message)

3-5 What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.

My mantra for months now has been, “we are one day closer to the end of this thing.” Look at that last sentence: “The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—-life healed and whole.” Man, did I need to hear that this morning! How about you?

6-7 I know how great this makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime. Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.

Peter reminds us that faith, like gold, gets refined in the fire. Folks, we are in the fire right now. What a time to refine our faith! What an opportunity to come out of this thing stronger, better, and more deeply connected with God because we’ve worked hard to stay in the Word. Think about it…what would you normally be doing right now? Our hustle-bustle life got slammed shut. God is inviting us to use the SLOW to reevaluate EVERYTHING.

8-9 You never saw him, yet you love him. You still don’t see him, yet you trust him—with laughter and singing. Because you kept on believing, you’ll get what you’re looking forward to: total salvation.

What is God asking you to reevaluate today? Where do you need further refining? Will you go back to your old self when this is over?

I hope not. I hope that enduring every kind of aggravation right now bears the fruit of all kinds of godly behavior in all of us. And maybe I’ll learn to be more patient with the looky-loos in the grocery store. Anything is possible with God!

Another Day Closer by Lisa Lawrence