The Other Brother

On April 20th I wrote in my journal about a dream I had the night before.

"I had a dream last night. It began with Francis Chan dressed in clothes, blue, with a bigger head and a small body. He was riding on a n animal narrating the story. There was a creature, brown, small, about the size of a medium dog. he had antlers that looked like a sling shot and another straight branch that connected them.

He was a wise, experienced, yet young creature...one of his kind amongst the kingdom. He got kicked out for some reason and was shunned. He roamed the hilly dessert and wandered hoping to be of use and share his knowledge and experiences.

Suddenly he saw an animal that looked like him except there was fire coming from his slingshot antlers. Flameless he got alert and anxious. More and more appeared until he was surrounded by a  thick blanket of these similar flame holding creatures. How would he defend himself? The creatures starred at him curiously as if waiting for direction. They slung fire from their antlers in nervousness to the flameless creature's reaction.

They calmed down and wanted guidance and to learn from their 'other brother.' He began to show them how to survive...by spreading apart plants and retrieving the bug beetles that lived inside so they could eat them. Up the black bug lept and into the creatures mouths. Technique after technique as the other brother led them and made an army strong to defend their kingdom. Then I woke up. "

Peculiar.

The past three sermons I have listened to have all been focused on making disciples. Two happened to be by Francis Chan and one by Tommy Nelson. I knew God was pressing it on my noggin. I flipped to a place in my journal where I had written out this dream and had sketched a picture of the reddish brown haired creature with black eyes. I remember the dream being very colorful, insightful, as if something was being explained and revealed.

All sorts of interpretations could be made I suppose, but what stuck with me last night was like the creature, followers of Christ are sometimes out-casted, we look different to people, and sometimes His ways are shunned because people don't see or can't understand yet. We are creatures wandering in the desert, kicked out of the 'earthly' kingdom. But we are called to disciple others. To pour out what we know of Jesus and teach others not only who He is, but how to live as he commands us to. We are called to do this even when it's scary and we feel weak and unequipped because we don't have flames coming out our antlers to protect ourselves. We do have the belt of truth on though and the Word as our sword.

"Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." ~Matthew 28:18-20

I don't know where the branched slingshots came from, the bobble-head Francis Chan, or what the black beetle bugs represented...but it was so vivid I felt led to draw it last night even though all I wanted to do was go to bed. All the dots lined up into a constellation that spelt out....'make disciples.' Raise up the Lord's army, equip, teach, share wisdom and truth. Maybe it was just another wild dream I had, but I doubt it. Only God knows :)