In 2008, Carol and I returned to Pakistan to lead a marriage conference in conjunction with a partnership forged between a ministry leader there and the mission ministry of North Point Ministries. We had been in the northern part of the country with 50 pastor couples in 2006 and experienced a wonderfully powerful demonstration of God's love for His people and grace extended to each of us. Two men in particular were noticeably unhappy at the 2006 conference and for the first day or so sought to ignore the teaching by either sleeping or arguing. However, as we noticed their belligerence and asked God to break through it, He did. By the end of our time there, these two men and their spouses had seen God's hand healing their relationship and setting them on a path to deep love and change.
When we returned two years later, we decided with the couple in charge to have Pakistani couples, who "Got It" and were still applying the principles from the 2006 conference, to come to the 2008 conference and lead small groups. This saved the churches money and gave their couples valuable training experience. I suggested that we needed at least 5 couples from the 2006 conference to help us lead small groups at the 2008 conference. We arrived at the venue in central Pakistan a day early to train those couples in small group leadership dynamics and make sure they not only "Got It" but "Still Had It".
After overcoming many obstacles to get in country and to my wonderful surprise, 2 of the 5 couples who'd agreed to lead small groups were the same two men (and their wives) who had been so set against us in the beginning of the 2006 conference. We knew it was going to be a great time again and it was!
Early in the conference week and very early one morning, Carol and I were asleep in our hotel room just across a very long bring over a river that was hardly wide enough to deserve such a huge bridge. This was the dry season, but as I came to understand, that same river spilled over the banks during the rainy season. I awoke about 3am with the words "the sun is always shining" rolling over and over in my head.
As I lay there, the words were repeated as if by someone whispering in my ear. Now, I don't usually see vision or hear audibly the voice of God, so I don't know exactly how God was doing this. However, I believed after a few replies of "Yes, I know, the sun is always shining somewhere" that it was the Holy Spirit of God who lives in each believer and therefore in me. After a few moments of this conversation, my understanding changed to "The Son is always shining".
Well, then I understood that Jesus' love, which is one of His dominant qualities and His pure motivation, always shines. He, Jesus, never stops loving us. Then seemingly as soon as I "got it", I could see Jesus (in my imagination) standing on a bridge. The bridge connected two kingdoms - perhaps islands or cities. Out of the gate to one kingdom came my wife Carol. I exited the other kingdom through a similar gate on the other end of the bridge. We met Jesus and held Him and He held us. We stood at the center of the bridge, and, you guessed it, "the Son was shining". His love radiated from Him to us and through us to one another.
I thought of "a cord of three strands is not easily broken" from Ecclesiastes 4: 12.
Instantly, I left the union of the three and returned to my kingdom. I was angry about what I didn't know, but somehow Carol had wronged me. I retreated to my kingdom (The Kingdom of Dave) and pulled the gate closed and held it tightly. The gate would spring open if I let it go. It's natural state was open, and I had to work to keep it closed. Then as if on cue, storm clouds rolled over me into the once clear blue sky and made their way toward Jesus and Carol. Somehow my storm and the darkness generated by it covered Carol, and she was caught in the shadow of my storm. But, the Son was still shining. His love for her was available to her. His love for me was also available, but I did not feel it, want it, or ask for it. Until a change of heart occurred behind my gate and I released the opening gate and ran to meet Carol and Jesus back on the bridge. The clouds were gone. The Son was still shining.
I finally went back to sleep but that dream or imagined picture has stayed with me.
I realized that several truths from the image of the bridg could help me love Carol more as Jesus does in the days ahead:
1. The gate of our relationship is not naturally closed. I had to hold it shut as an act of my will. My muscles ached, my hands cramped, and I became exhausted from the stress of my stubbornness.
2. Carol's gate to the Kingdom of Carol was in her control, not mine. I could knock. I could call out, but only she had the power to choose to release the gate and open to me again.
3. Jesus never moved but invited us to stay with Him on the bridge, in the sunlight, and Son-love.
4. When I run from Jesus into my kingdom, nothing good comes to Carol from me. She lives in the shadow of Dave until the time, I rejoin her and Jesus on the bridge.
5. Of the 3 strands of the cord formed of Carol, Jesus, and me, only Jesus remains constant. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never thins, unravels, or breaks.
Did you know the Son is always shining?
