waking up

A dream I just had:

*begin dream*

I’m trying to sneak into church or someplace, and I have a pretty elaborate plan for getting in without being noticed, and it involved several people. I remember it being in the light of day.

So I try to get in for the Nth time, failing each time (like a video game), but this last time was special. I get in, but someone was approaching from behind. I think it was suppsosed to be Albert, Revivalution Pastor. So I go and I hide in the very first office to my left. Immediately I am surprised by Pastor Duane (Interim English Pastor in SFCAC for a few years, was always encouraging my music munistry), and we talk for a bit. Here, he’s lost some weight since I last saw him. Then Pastor Dave comes in from somewhere, and we talk about my future. I bring up seminary, and both Pastor Duane and Pastor Dave think it’s a good idea. But I tell them, “I’m afraid.”

I remember this being quite a vivid dream, with myself discussing with Pastor Dave (somehow Pastor Duane disappeared) explaining in detail the very things I’ve been thinking about recently (seminary stuff).

I tell him my parents have told me of their thoughts that I would become a pastor. But I then explain that I always felt I would go into music ministry. He tells me this: “So, thousands of people gathered around one person with lights and a stage, and that’s worship?” I quickly set that aside as I reaffirmed myself, that that is NOT what I want most.

I then go on to talk about how Matt Redman leads worship but also has inspiring books, and I basically tell him it appeals to me greatly. He understands, and with his very certain and confident Pastor-Dave-way, tells me what I need to do. He tells me that I’m just like him, and then he shows me a poem he wrote in response to Matt Redman’s Facedown book, right below a colorful printing of its catch phrase, “Whe you face up to the glory of God, you soon find yourself facedown in worship.” His poem is in response apparently, and I remember two occurnces of the words “I wiil” starting off two lines, and it being something about responding to God in action. It has rhythm and rhyme, but now I think other details of that poem are lost forever. And in my dream, I think I get the point. So then I ask him if he put his artistic passions on the side to pastor a church…

*end dream*

Now some of this was in color, and I’m scared by the verismilitude of it all. I’ve been praying about my future, and been thinking and talking about these very issues. I remember asking God a while back to speak to me in a dream. How much more real does it get? Yet how great a mistake would it be to take it as God’s message to me, especially since the deram started out so wacked-out. This stirs up some old feelings and experiences now…

My second year in UCLA, after bring rebuked about RevPraise, I surrendered to Christ all my ambitions in music to be identified with Him first. Or so I thought. Daily, I know. But that sure makes me think it may be time to do so again, this time, with more specific an offering to sacrifice.

No comments, please. This is too much.

For all of you faithful warjianrumoelliu blogreaders (like my mom & stuff), I have something to say. For you see, all this blank space, from my last posts of substance until now, I have had little of which I could blog about.

But now, and only now in one of those special moments (I guess you could call it inspiration), do I consider myself fully ready for a true, in-depth, sincere, and heartfelt recounting of what I have seen for the most recent bit of my life. It is with faith and hope that I pray the Holy Spirit bring even a little of the depth that I have felt into my lackluster words.

To serve as an update — yes, life has had its ups and downs. Here are some word parallels in which I’m trying to illustrate some of the polar-opposites I’ve experienced:

Absolute mundanity, stressful instances of very little control of mine, fiery temptation, deep personal struggle, and even dark thoughts. Worship born of mustard-seed faith, peaceful instances of very little control of mine, moments of redemption, loving fellowship with God, and intimate reassurance.

That sums up about 3 weeks.

Today, things culminated in one of the craziest days in my life yet. I’ve had a few crazy ones this past year, but today was another. Ignore the next paragraph, because I’m just babbling to myself so I have my memorial stone freshly vivid.

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From a semi-rude awakening to coming to grips with a deep issue before God at Morning Prayer (the first I’ve been to since we moved to the Valley), receiving His intimate counsel, to fighting for a half-hour nap that never gave in, to fighting morning traffic, to worshiping in my car, to fighting drowsiness throughout the day, to hanging out with VanLin (random!), to getting ready to lead-worship for the first UCLA Big Group of the year, to receiving God’s vision for the year in Rev-UCLA, to eating Apple Pan with Mike & Elliot, to talking with a random Christian old-guy at Apple Pan, to talking about an Ethnomusicological study of Sacred Music in the Church (Christian Worship), to the long but cut-short discussion of worship with Elliot…

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It is now 2:19 AM. After the long day with all of its with all of its inwardly rational/irrational (mental and emotional) conflicts, I have come to one thing. That I know more now about who I am in Him and what I’m all about.

I’m all about Him.

The core of me, the heart, the deepest part of who I am, my very spirit says that I am about seeking and finding Him. Beyond all my corruption and sadness, shame and doubt, and all that I do that seems to say otherwise… the deepest part yet remains untouched and forever. He has placed eternity in my heart. That insatiable longing, that perpetually holy frustration that will carry me from this place into the next where I will know Him as He knows me. That I might diligently seek and find His worth. That I might discover it through revelation and response.

Oh, how I long for revelation… and the heart I must share…

It’s the passion and purpose, the “I must” of my life. I’ve experienced this before. Perpetually fresh has it been stirred up again — the way the reponse was when the call was revealed.

***

Movement

I am Moved so I Move.

God is seen! as

good! so I shout

Go!

I await/behold His/my move.

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