I had this dream over a week ago, and I had to let it percolate for a while to let its meaning sink in. I had fallen asleep after reading a passage in Luke about the kingdom of God and asking God to help me understand it. Much confusion has arisen because of this passage, and no wonder. It is not a piece of cake to understand at first glance, that is for sure!

Then He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, ‘Look here!’ or ‘Look there! Do not go after them or follow them. For as the lightning that flashes out of one part under heaven shines to the other part under heaven, so also the Son of Man will be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

“In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left.”

And they answered and said to Him, “Where, Lord?”

So He said to them, “Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.”

So at 4:44, I woke up to the sound of my cats fighting. Biddlesworth and Gordon regularly fight right before bed, but they’ve usually settled down by the middle of the night. When I woke up, this intense dream had just ended and was fresh in my mind.

In my dream, I was at the beach. People at the beach started getting sick, mainly with cramps in their legs. I thought they were just out of shape, but then I got a cramp as well. The next morning, I started talking to a friend about how perhaps there were chemicals in the water from surrounding manufacturing plants. We walked down to the beach, and floating in the water was a large test strip in a long vial that showed that the water had dangerous levels of several harmful elements.

I thanked God for sending us the capsule and we went to find the company whose name was on the top of the vial. We didn’t get very far. In the first building we passed through, some controlling administrator-type people took the vial from us and hid it in the plumbing of the bathroom. We managed to get it back somehow, though, and ended up taking it to the city manager, who oversaw the lifeguards whose job it was to protect the people swimming in the water.

The lifeguards were simply appalled. The test results showed that the water had been polluted for some time, and they hadn’t known to warn the people. They quickly painted signs with the color red to warn people that the water was polluted. All the while, the evil folks from the prior building were working to destroy the vial and somehow obscure the truth, continuing to lie to the people about the poison in the water.

Eventually, everything turned out pretty much okay, with a plan being set up to regularly monitor the water. Or so it seemed. Then the dream switched into some drama about the lifeguards trying to get out of the building on time. They were running down flights of stairs with piles of clothing, TVs and other things that merely slowed their progress, endangering their lives. Something intense was about to happen in that building, and destruction was near.

Once they were at the bottom, everyone started to relax. We went into a room that had at least 40 huge water mains that needed to be turned on. It was time to turn on this fresh water and let it flow. The amount of fresh water that would flow through this building was enormous. However, the motor that would pump the water out was temporarily malfunctioning. One girl (a lifeguard?) became impatient and went ahead and left the building, even though if the pump started working, she’d be washed away.

Finally, the pump started up, and water started to flow, faster and faster, more and more. The girl began to run. Her flight was slow because of a little dog she had with her that was holding her back. She kept pausing to wait for it, even though the water was coming. When the water finally came in all its power, it was terrible. It knocked down trees like matchsticks and swept them, cars and other debris down the street. It collapsed the hill the girl had run screaming down and she surely died. There was a lot of chaos as everything was swept away. This is when I woke up.

After giving it some thought, it seems that the water coming from the building with the lifeguards is God’s cleansing water. It washes away poison and cleans away the crap in our lives — and culture, if we — the lifeguards — turn it on. And the Church — people who love God — has perhaps been remiss in maintaining the engine that allows God’s love to flow through us. Once you decide to turn it on, there is no turning back. It will transform your life and sweep away the old you. You can’t hang on to your attachments. It will transform the lives of others.

I think this is what Jesus may mean by his words above about the Kingdom of God. These words have been interpreted to mean that some people will vanish into thin air when Jesus comes down out of the sky. While anything at all is possible, I don’t think this is correct. Jesus — the Christ-consciousness of truth, love and peace — can come into our lives like lightening at any moment. When it does, your self will die and be carted away to the garbage even though a person right next to you is perfectly happy living their old life. Meanwhile, you find yourself living in God’s Kingdom — here on earth in that other dimension that is accessible through love and God’s grace.

When Christ is revealed to us, all the eating, drinking, buying, selling, etc. becomes less important. It is “destroyed” by the light of His revelation that what is important is God’s true light — this world is but an illusion.

I have such a desire to see people recognize the poison in this world. We are having public shootings on almost a daily basis, and if that is not one barometer of a poisoned society, I don’t know what is. I pray that God’s cleansing water come enter the life of all and wash away what is not true.

If you are reading this and you do not identify as Christian, please don’t be offended. I believe God’s Kingdom is available to all, regardless of creed. Christ’s consciousness is for all who seek the light of God and Truth, even when it is called something else.

The joy of the Lord is my strength.