Dreaming of Dinosaurs

January 22, 2023
Reflections from the Heart of Allan Redenius
 
Every year, we wake up to the start of a new year.  That morning is universally celebrated around the globe.  Granted, due to staying up and greeting the “new year,” there are many eyes that don’t want to open!
 
That thought of waking up on New Year’s Day prompts me to think about sleep every day.  Sleep allows all of us to take a break, to escape, to fall into nothingness each night.  Unconscious, not thinking, our body replenishes and rejuvenates.  Then we awake to a fresh new day with anticipation of what this day might bring.  For some, a new day brings new hope, new promise and for others, deep sadness and gloomy despair.  Every new morning is all about life.  The Psalmist said this about each new day, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
 
But I want to focus on the time of sleep.  Somehow, my body instinctively knows when to, as the expression goes, “knock yourself out.”  Some nights, I truly am unconscious and unaware of whatever is going on around me.  Other nights are more like half-sleep, half awake.  My brain knows what’s happening all around, but even though my brain is aware, it does not react.  (That happens when I am awake too.) 😊  Then there were nights of sheer terror as I once heard evil coming to devour me and I was unable to move, unable to escape.  (I should never have gone to that movie in third grade entitled, Dinosaurs.) Don’t tell me what young people watch in a movie, or T.V. today doesn’t affect them tomorrow.  For forty some years, I slept with the nightly fear of being unable to escape the pounding advance through the forest of that dinosaur, evil coming for me.  My only avenue of escape was to cry out, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!”
 
Now, in my older years, that dragon (dinosaur) has all but disappeared.  Is he gone forever?  No, I know he still lurks out there in the forest ready to pounce at the first moment of weakness.
 
So, what’s my defense?  The answer is Jesus, Who guards me and keeps me.  Knowing that, I sleep like a baby!
 
Sweet Dreams,
Pastor Allan
 
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