I had a dream one of the first nights of being in Jacksonville, and it went something like this:
Meandering up a country road, the wide horizon of a Midwestern landscape stretched out before me. Pale yellow gravel crunched beneath my feet as I stepped onward. Smooth hills rolled up to meet me, enormous waves of earth too lethargic to ever crash like the surf on Neptune Beach. As I walked, the world around me came into crisper focus; tall black-eyed susans gained prevalence among the wild, unkempt grasses growing in the ditches and I watched the dust around my feet, agitated by movement, stir up in purposefully chaotic wisps, carried away in the breeze. Glancing beyond a faded road sign standing askew, I became aware of a hazy light reaching over the crest of the rising ground ahead. I pressed on up the incline to the prize of gaining the summit; a broad, fruitful valley opened up beneath me, the patchwork quilt of farmland laying out as in a hammock under the sun. Details previously overlooked became obvious; the farms yielded alfalfa, beans, and corn, and I discovered deer tracks and a thin, twisted stream cutting through the Earth— nuances found only by those who walk this path with purpose. The road wound down into the valley, and I spotted it in the distance, a narrow golden thread stretching over the opposite brim, reaching on and on toward what I know only to be a beautiful Mystery.
Comprehension of the gospel, I'm beginning to think, is not a destination that I reach, but rather a road upon which I have walked, am walking, and will continue to walk into eternity. My inability to fully grasp the majesty of God's sovereignty and grace, then, is not an inconvenience, but a joy and a gift daily given; the longer I walk, the sweeter His revelation.
