So my mother calls me the other day to tell me about a recurring dream she’s been having.  My oldest daughter is expecting, and my mother keeps dreaming she is going to have a boy.  If a boy is delivered my mother will take credit for it – completely forgetting the Y chromosome donated by that tall skinny kid who used to be in the youth group.  This latest dream is quite vivid.  “I am sitting down,” she says, “and he comes into the room to bring me two books.  The books are old – Zane Grey books I think.  He is 8 years old.  He has lots of curly hair, and he looks like you – only more masculine.”  That’s what she says - he looks like me, only more masculine.  Thanks mom.  “Could you have said that a little more delicately,” I ask, “Like maybe saying: ‘He looks like you, only less feminine’?”  That was a good one - he looks like you only more masculine.  How do you go on from that?  “I gotta go mom,” I say, “I’ve got a mani-pedi scheduled, then me and the guys are going to enjoy some tapas, and watch Say Yes to the Dress.”

            “He looks like you, only more masculine.”  Heavens.  Hearing that is like being 12 again, and shopping for back-to-school-clothes with your mom, you’re trying on pants and she keeps checking to see if the inseam is just right.  Then again – if God blesses us with a grandson, isn’t that exactly what I’d want him to be – taller, smarter, stronger, better, kinder, as well as mas macho than I am?  If we then could get him to be a little more outspoken than his other granddad we’d have one great kid.  (In case you don’t know Chuck – that’s a joke.)

            Jews in the 1st century knew all about the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.  Outside the Sadducee party, it seems that messianic prophecies were all anyone wrote, spoke, or thought about.  When Jesus fulfilled those prophesies in ways they could never have imagined, they crucified Him.  One of the first tasks the risen Lord undertakes is to explain (again) how those prophecies describe his ministry and sacrifice (Luke 24.27, 45).  The disciples spent the rest of the 1st century explaining to the world that yes, this is indeed what the prophecies meant, what they must mean.  The first gospel sermon begins with just this exercise.  Peter quotes Joel, and says that the promise of dream and visions there is describing that very day.

            We read our Bibles, observe how obtuse the disciples are, and feel a sense of superiority.  But I doubt we have earned the right to feel thus.  We know that God keeps His promises in ways we cannot imagine – and yet yield to discouragement when things don’t turn out the way WE plan them.  When we ask God for a blessing, do we really want that blessing the way God intends to give it?  Take the promise of wisdom, for instance.  James 1.5 says that if we just ask for wisdom God will give us a liberal portion.  But James 1.5 never promises that God will somehow miraculously stimulate our brain-stem, thereby increasing the number of wisdom capacitors in our brain.  Maybe that liberal portion of wisdom will come wrapped up in disappointment, or in a box of failure.  When disappointment or failure come – do we blame God?  If we do, aren’t we blaming Him for answering our prayers?

            God “goes forth for the salvation of his people” (Habakkuk 3.13).  This is eternally true.  We are not always sufficiently attentive to notice Him doing it, but He works for our salvation nonetheless.  How often do we fail to notice it, or perhaps even resent him for doing the thing we want anyway?