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“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door with be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who knocks, the door will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).
What does Lent mean to you? Giving up something? Fasting? Spending more time in prayer? Looking forward to the lengthening days of spring? Planning your new Easter outfit? I’ve tried all of these at some time or other, but this year I think God wants more.
Two recent blessings in my life are urging me to think differently about the coming 40-day period of preparation for Easter. The first is the book my Bible study group is reading, The Divine Conspiracy (1998, HarperCollins) by Dallas Willard. The second is a dream I had in January.
I have epic, dramatic, Kodak-color dreams. This dream was no exception. It ended like this: I was walking very close to the hard, rough walls in a large stone castle. Oddly enough, the wall was covered with a reddish patterned carpet. I came to a place where the carpet seemed hollow, without stones behind it. Upon investigating, I found a hidden opening covered only by the carpet held in place by a Velcro closure. I ripped the Velcro open, peered inside, and discovered a large, vacant room. It looked foreboding, so I quickly tried to re-Velcro the carpet back in place. As with all dreams I began to wake up and think about what I had just experienced.
Many psychologists indicate that every part of a dream represents some part of oneself. So I began to think about what the castle, wall, carpet, Velcro and room might represent and what new insight into myself I might find. I view my personhood as being like a huge castle in which I live—my little kingdom. It has unexplored rooms that I haven’t opened even though they may not be difficult to access—as easy as ripping Velcro. Yet, in fear of the unknown, I tend to ignore these mysterious inner spaces. Thus I don’t rule there or purposefully control these areas.
Our inner castle is where we search for and live out our meaning and purpose. God desires to reveal and refurbish all the rooms of our inner castle. So our life task is to become self-aware, to open up and allow God to access all areas of our lives for our own well-being and for God’s purpose.
Dallas Willard writes,
“Sometimes the places where God’s effective or actual rule is not yet carried out, and his will is not yet done, lie within the lives and little kingdoms of those who truly have been invaded by the eternal kind of life itself—those who really do belong to Christ because his life is already present and growing within them.
The ‘interior castle’ of the human soul, as Teresa of Avila called it, has many rooms, and they are slowly occupied by God, allowing us time and room to grow. ....this does not detract from the reality of the ‘kingdom among us.’ Nor does it destroy the choice that all have to accept it and bring their life increasingly into it.”
I believe God is challenging me to look into a large, unexplored part of myself during this Lenten season. God desires to expand Christ’s rule within me. It is my prayer that this will happen.
There is a custom of giving up something for Lent. I think this is a time to receive. God is calling me, and perhaps you too, to lay aside lesser, outer concerns and to open up to receive God’s self-revelation in new ways in new places. This Lenten period can be a time to ask, search, knock, and find new God-perspectives to our inner spiritual vacancies which will lead to being more fully the whole person God created each of us to be.
Prayer: Transforming God, we seek you to inhabit each of us more fully. Please, open us to embrace you so your kingdom on earth may come more fully in and through each of us. In the name of Jesus, the model for transformation. Amen.
Carol Willard
Laywoman
Calvary Baptist Church
Denver, CO
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