THE DREAM!
A friend and I were biking through Maine. We were riding down a highway, ready to leave the town we were in and head for home. I had a GPS on my bike that was programmed for that very location and I thought we were all set. Having been in this town in Maine on previous occasions, I had a vague idea about which road was the one I should take. As I approached the seemingly familiar turn-off, I waited to hear the GPS voice tell me to turn right. Alas, it did not. I began to panic, thinking that it was sending me on a different route, or perhaps I was worried that my sense of recall was faulty and I hadn't recognized the road after all.
Being so reliant on technology in an unfamiliar place, I kept on going, waiting for the infamous "RECALCULATING", but it was not forthcoming. My friend and I continued on, and the ensuing road was shady, dark, and extremely hilly. We pushed ourselves physically to the point of near exhaustion as we waited for some direction from the GPS. But still, nothing. We continued on into a more thickly-wooded area and ended up on a rough, trail-like road that led further into the woods.
Finally, we came upon a pair of summer cottages in the woods that were close together, and which were each inhabited by an older woman. We made our way there and finally disembarked from our bikes. I tapped around on the GPS to find out why it had been such a disappointment and realized that I had inadvertently pressed the mute button, rendering it silent in our travels. I also tried to get a fix on how far we were from where we should have been. I pinpointed our location, then zoomed out to get the big picture. Doing so made me realize that that we had somehow made it to the coast of Maine, and though it was beautiful, it was miles and miles from where we should have been to continue our journey home.
The two women that we met were kindly and sympathetic to our plight and offered to drive us back to the main road so we could continue our journey. I asked the woman who offered first if she had a car large enough to transport our bikes. She did not, so her neighbor volunteered to drive us in her minivan.
I awoke just as we were making our way to the garage . . .
THE INTERPRETATION!
As a general thought, the dream represented to me -- at least in this stage of my life -- the fact that if we journey through life on our own power (the bikes?) without God's voice to guide us and direct us (the GPS?), we get lost. Despite this, he allows our path to cross with those of people who can help show us the way back. Aside from this overall idea, there were several interesting nuances to the dream that can also be food for thought:
* we often hit the MUTE button on what God has to say to us (either purposefully, or by accident); sometimes we are more like little children sticking their fingers in their ears chanting "la-la-la-la" so as not to hear!
* we may vaguely recognize the right road to take, but without some concrete guidance or direction, we have a tendency to just ride on past
* why don't we panic as much when we think we don't hear from God as we do if we don't get proper direction from a piece of technology?
* when we go on a different road from the one God has planned for us, the journey is often darker, more difficult, and exhausting -- physically, emotionally, and mentally
* we may not think we are that far from God when we choose a different path (after all, we may be living a good life, not blatantly sinning, etc.) but when we return to the road He wants us on and look back in retrospect (or zoom out to get the big picture), we see how truly far from Him we actually were
* those people who help us back onto the "main road" may not be what we expect
* and a final interesting note: while the friend and I were living the free and adventurous life biking around, it was a minivan -- the epitome of stability and ordinariness -- that brought us back to where we should have been
