Enlarge your heart

I must have dozed off as I suddenly realised I’d seen something in that period after some early morning contemplation, which might be important. 

I’m knocking on a door. I go in. It’s a small room. It’s a surgery room. I say, “ you called me in”. I look around the small room and see there is a space for me on a chair tightly tucked into the left of the room. There’s a female who initially seems to be examining a young lad. I am not sure who she is. The lad is lying clothed on a couch on his back as a patient. The female is a doctor she has her back to me. There’s a man who’s at the end of the bed who I look at who has grey hair. I think this is the lad’s father. As I sit down the boy raises up slightly and says with passion and longing some medical speak of which I catch only one word, amplius, followed by technical medical words. He is like a public-school boy and seems to be very knowledgeable. I believe, as I observe, that he’s speaking about the condition of his heart. I don’t know how I know that. The father looks at his son fondly and proudly. The father has aged a lot from the initial point of looking at him as I’m shocked at how many wrinkles there are on his face. His face filled my vision. He looks a lot older than he should. Also his face shape changed to being more oval from being pointed and I see him more close up. 

I must have drifted off again as the next thing I remember is the scene where a lad is left in a room on his own and the adults are walking out and the door closes behind them. I’m wondering the lad could just get up and leave too. They haven’t locked him in. Will he leave?  

Initially I considered that the dream was about the physical condition of the lad’s heart. Yet it is the internal state of his being. The heart is considered to be, in old language, the seat of the affection. In Hebrew thinking, it is as stated in the Lexham Bible word study function, one’s inner self; inclination, disposition; determination, courage; will, intention; attention, consideration, reason.

I had a scripture that came with the dream which is from the longest Psalm in the Bible:

I will run the way of your commandments for you will enlarge my heart

Psalm 119:32

I had this waking dream a few weeks ago and it’s one that’s stayed with me and I keep getting more out of it.

Here in the dream I am invited in to a place to witness a consultation. So often in a real life consultation with a doctor and a minor there is a parent who is present. The doctor waits to hear what the patient has to say to find out what diagnosis they can bring. Here the doctor is waiting to bring that diagnosis. The patient in this instance has some desperation which is evident by his outburst. Often in these situations (I speak for myself) patients express things which are not clearly articulated in their thoughts. What comes out of their mouth may not make sense.

Clearly the father in this instance is a doting one and wants the best for his son. He witnesses the son’s longing. My focus turns to the father’s face. There’s evident signs of aging and softening. This ‘more’ and/or further that the son longs for us in part that longing to mature, to become more fulfilled and satisfied than he currently is.

The pause in the dream is significant as it conveys waiting. Waiting in the Biblical view is not passive. It also speaks of hope which is expectation and can only be fully found in our Creator and our Father. There are numerous verses about hope in the Bible one of these declares that Jesus is our hope and yet another that we are born again to a living hope

The young man is left with a choice is he going to stay where he is or move on and follow? This is the choice we all have.

Whilst listening to a new series on Advent by Bible Project I had a revelation which was unexpected. I was listening to the episode on hope. The dream suddenly made even more sense. It relates to the gift of the trumpet which I have also written about recently.

Tim and John were exploring the different Hebrew words for hope. Tim went on to say how he had been enjoying reading about the 4th century bishop Gregory of Nissa and what he says. Here is some of the transcript which was really eye opening and expresses really well what I think the dream is saying:

There was an early church bishop and scholar in the 4^th century. He lived in the region of Cappodocia his name was Gregory of Nissa…He talks about the experience of New Creation as being this paradox where it’s both the fulfilment of every hope that I’ve ever had of being in a resurrection body in the direct presence of God…with all the redeemed creation…but for God to be God, God is always above and beyond what any creature to comprehend, like the very essence of who God is as someone to know, like we’ll never know the full depth, beauty and complexity of God’s being. Yet every step forward we take to grow in our union and knowledge with God, will simultaneously satisfy us and then make us realise that there’s another horizon knowing God beyond it. And he thinks of the new creation as an infinity, he calls it the epiktasis, the eternal stretching out of the human soul…There’s more…it’s a paradox…everything fulfilled in the new creation, simultaneously my appetite for desire fulfilled is infinite and can only be matched by an infinite God which means it’s an eternity of growing into our desires and meeting them only to see there’s like the next horizon… This is one way to think about hope it’s a generative creative tension that keeps us exploring  and desiring.  

In a previous part of the episode they shared another scripture which resonated with me and the dream referred to. It relates to hope. This hope isn’t something wishy-washy it’s an expectation which we have and its grounded in a person, the person of Christ. He is the hope of the nations and the whole world. The scripture they said is this:

Hope that is deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

Proverbs 13:12, LEB

This scripture says in a nutshell what Tim is interpreting of Gregory. In my words there is a longing in all of us each for satisfaction which can only fully be found in the one who made us. This comes through an ongoing relationship with the Creator, through Jesus. We can each reach a point in our lives when we know there is so much more even in this relationship with Jesus and we find some satisfaction when we take hold of an aspect of his nature. For that moment we are satisfied but hunger is what drives us and so we desire more. This is probably why Jesus says of himself I am the bread of life. He who eats of me will never hunger.