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A Dream |
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A Dream |
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--Larry Norman, from Long Ago the Garden I haven’t found it easy to pray for President Clinton, even though I know I should. His unwavering support for child killing makes it difficult, at least for me, to compose a sincere prayer for him. And yet, because of the power and influence of his office, because he is in a position to do great good or great harm, I know it’s important to pray for him. I’m going to tell you a dream I had recently which was about Bill Clinton. But I need to preface the telling of my dream by saying that I do not look for guidance or revelation from dreams. I know the Lord has used dreams in the past to guide and reveal, and I presume that He will do so in our day, according to His good pleasure. But I’m a natural skeptic when it comes to dreams and visions. I don’t confer upon dreams a great deal of importance. Dreams are dreams – just the mind relaxing by scrambling everything up a bit. Go to sleep and your thoughts scatter all over the place. That’s what dreams are. But this dream, which was a typical scramble of places and people, had one peculiar result: it helped me pray for President Clinton. If I was moved by a sermon on the radio, or by a magazine article, and it changed my attitude sufficiently that I could pray for the President, I’d be glad to mention it. So, I suppose I should be willing to mention something as trivial as a dream: I was in a big house, an old house that once belonged to my family in the Mississippi Delta (I visited the place recently, which is probably why it was in my mind). A lot of people were there. There was quite a bit of activity, but I don’t know exactly what was going on. I saw President Clinton in one of the upstairs rooms and I thought to myself, "I’m not going to waste my time talking to that guy." And then as I moved briskly on into another room, I suddenly thought, "I wonder if he’d like someone to read the Bible to him -- I won’t argue with him about anything, I’ll just read the Bible." (I spent many happy hours at one time in my life reading the Bible to my grandparents in that house). I immediately went back and asked the President if he’d like me to read the Bible to him. He would. I don’t think he was enthusiastic, but he was clearly willing. Problem: where to find a Bible. I knew I had to be quick. The President is a busy man and I didn’t want to presume on his time. I didn’t know where my own Bible was, so as we moved together into yet another room to sit down, I snatched a Bible off a table in the hallway. I knew immediately that the Bible I’d grabbed wasn’t in very good shape. It was ripped, and part of the cover was missing. But it was what I had in hand and I had a chance to read it to the President. He sat down in a chair and I sat down on a stool at his feet. His aide -- a man; I have no idea who it was -- sat beside him in another chair. I opened the Bible to read, suggesting Psalm 91. (I don’t know why I came up with Psalm 91. Even in my dream this surprised me. I read Psalm 103 to my grandfather many times, and the night before he died, at his request, I read to him Psalm 90.) But when I tried to read the psalm to the President, I couldn’t. I could barely make out the first line and then (typical dream weirdness), the Bible in my hands became a bunch of screwdrivers attached in some way to the binding, with each line of the psalm written on the metal shaft of a different screwdriver, but written with such small letters that I couldn’t make out the words. I struggled for a minute trying to read the psalm, realized I couldn’t, and excused myself with the words, "I’m sorry, Mr. President, I’m wasting your time." As I was leaving the room, he rose and walked to one side. He didn’t speak or even look at me, but he appeared to be tired, disappointed and frustrated. I was surprised at his countenance and suddenly, I felt sorry for the man. ...and I woke up, still feeling sorry for him.
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