The Place Above

More and more I'm realizing a certain dream of mine for the future. In the midst of my prayer about it last night, I felt like a child, running to my father with a beloved treasure for his outstretched and ready hands. Part of me felt timid. Do I really want to let it go? It's such a part of me, of who I am, and I've held it for so long.

But one look into his roseate, heartening, warm eyes and all of my wondering turned from the dream in my hands to the gleam of his presence. I felt him say to me, "I'll hold it for you, dear one. Now run along and play. I'll call you when it's time." And I can't describe to you the joy that washed over me, but it was something like being released for summer break. And somehow, the precious treasure fell forgotten from my hands as I turned to run in his kingdom fields. I turned around to see if he was still watching me, and saw him picking up my dream in the grass. Straightening up to his tallest stature, he smiled at me and I felt warm all over, as though the sun had showered on me.

I ran like the wind, I ran like my fourth graders do when we're going out to recess, I ran like I do, when after months of being away, I finally see the ocean again. When the God of the universe looks you in the eye and tells you he'll call you when it's time, the only things left for you to do are to run and dance in his fields with all the freedom and forgetfulness imaginable, to wonder wide-eyed at what he's made for your delight, to love with the simple abandon of a trusting child, to let every word that falls from your Father's mouth soak into your soul like sunshine. And in all of that bounding joy, I know without a doubt that he is watching me and that I am safe.

Sometimes I still think about my dream. And sometimes, I'm ashamed to say, I try hard to pry it from his hands. But he always looks me straight in the eye, saying something like, "Dear one, if you take this, you will only tread on it and lose it. Let me hold it for you. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." And now I cannot remember if it's my dreams he's holding for me or my heart, but I do know, without a doubt, that my treasure and my heart belong to him.

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That's all rather beautiful, but what about living in the real world?

I would ask you in return, which is in truth more real?

Prayer, communing with our Father, is a step into this place, a step into his beloved, perspective-altering presence, a step into the reality for which we were made. And not only that, but doing his will in love is a seed that will only grow on this earth, a seed that will come to fruition when his kingdom is the only one to exist. The act of talking with him and doing his work with him is at once a step into the place above, and a pull to bring it here below.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!