Life as a dream.

Have you ever had a dream that felt real? So real that as you were waking up you were thoroughly confused as to what was happening? And for those brief moments before you were fully aware of ‘real life’ you probably felt one of two things. Either the dream was bad, and deep down arose the most euphoric feeling in that you knew the dream was a dream, and that you were free from it; or the dream was delightful and grand, and deep down you felt a dread coming back into reality knowing you had, still, to deal with ‘life’.

In this way I think we will wake up to either Heaven or Hell, and the feeling of this life will be that of a distant dream. The next life, that is the after life, will be the true life, and we will either wake up happy, or regretful.

When I reflect on these points (and I do quite often) I always come back to the same thing. Am I spending this time in this life (now) wisely, or am I wasting it? Here’s my question to the Christian. Would you, if you were God, let yourself into Heaven based upon your love for God? Sometimes I come to this grim conclusion that if I were God, I would say to myself ‘truly I say to you, I do not know you’. (Matthew 25:12 and Luke 13:22-31)

Waking up to give account of how I lived my life is a dreadful thought. I waste a lot of time. But lately I’ve been convicted on this more and more, and I think as Christians we ought to watch how we spend our time. The late David Wilkerson, in his book ‘The Vision and Beyond’ wrote this, from Satan’s point of view:

“Look at the last day Christian, the television addict! Look at him-hours and hours for soap operas, comedies, sports-but no time to get alone with God. He turns God off with a dial. He hunts, fishes, travels; plays golf tennis, and basketball. He goes to movies and parties, and has become a gadabout, but he has no time to read his Bible or pray. Is this the last day Christian who is supposed to walk by faith? Is this the one who will overcome the world? Is this the one who is to prepare for a coming day of persecution and world of chaos? Are these the playboy Christians upon whom the ends of the world will fall?”

My concluding point is merely that our (free) time, that is, our time in which we choose what to do and how to spend it should be spent with Jesus. I am bad at this, and struggle, but I find after a while it’s not so hard to turn off the computer or deny the odd movie just to spend time with God or listen to a sermon. Just something that tells God ‘you are the most important thing in my life’. Who ever has regretted reading their Bible? I never have. But I have regretted many a movie.