Every so often I end up rested enough to dream and remember my dreams. Sometimes I feel as though the content of my dream has woken me up, but my brain tells me I only remember the parts right before I woke up for some physical reason.  Last night I had a dream that included friends from high school and ended with a flittering thought about the simplicity of understanding the meaning of the Bible.

I woke with my brain developing arguments for why understanding the meaning of the Bible was not simple and why my friends were wrong to exclude me from the conversation. Its amazing how much depth there can be in a few seconds of a dream. In addition to the Bible topic and the rejection, I was left pondering who were my friends, who was I friends to, how ignorant I was (and am), how could I be a better friend, who to be friends to, and wondering if I have so few friends because I am such a horrible friend.

I have watched the BBC series Sherlock recently and the term high functioning sociopath really stuck out to me as Sherlock Holmes self-description. I had to look up sociopath as sometimes I am not sure I really understand the definition of technical terms outside my area, especially how the use may have changed in the 30 years or so since I learned them. So officially (according to the internet) a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience is a sociopath. It fits the character of Sherlock utilized in the series, but it also seems to fit a lot of the problems in our “civilization”.

I have often wondered why the dreams we have while sleeping and the dreams we have of our better future are rooted in the same word. I do not want my future to be like my sleeping dreams and I have never been able to get my sleeping dreams to reflect the future I want.  My sleeping dreams often seem remakes of my awkward teenage years I thought were so great only to find out I missed out on a lot of great experiences that other kids had during their growing up. Dads, meaningful conversations with family, meaningful conversations with more than a single friend, etc.

During my waking hours, I experience reality. I can meet my friends to have meaningful conversations, I can study the Bible and share my thoughts with others, I have friends who reach out, I have a family that talks and communicates, and I have gaps. I have friends who are not friends anymore because I did something I should not have done. I have irritated people with my interpretation of what the Bible says. I have neglected to reach out to friends. I have irritated my family in many ways. None of us are perfect and we all have negative consequences that follow us through life. This is reality.

One of the two main points on Bible study that stuck with me all day were that God is Omniscient and that this allows Him to understand that people have been tainted by original sin and He choses to make scripture anything but simple. He allows the meaning to be revealed when people are seeking out the relationship with Him that each individual was made to need. Once an individual accepts Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, He uses the indwelling Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning of scripture according to the work that He has laid out for each individual. Sometimes, He only reveals meanings to teachers and preachers for the edification of the church. Sometimes, He reveals different meanings to the same individual from the same passage at different times in their spiritual journey.

When I awoke from my dream, I wondered if my passion for the topic had woken me up. I spent effort trying to remember the jest of the dream in order to write this piece. I have rarely been awoken in the middle of the night with such a clear task before me. At least I did not wake up with the need to fix all the issues around the house, that would have made for a long tedious day or another dose of reality.