Of Snakes And Men

One night I had a dream. I was giving a talk of sorts in an old-style cultural hall at a stake center. As I proceeded, I was dismayed that the audience was not only not paying attention, but their voices were soon drowning out mine. I spoke louder into my microphone, but it was to no avail. As I looked down into the crowd, I was suddenly intrigued! I had to join their throng! Before I knew what I was doing, I was down in the mass of bodies, and we were all together in a celebration of the color gray. There was a low buzzing noise in the room as we were each comparing and listing to each other the events of our lives. Many of them were sad and disheartening. The more we spoke, the louder the humming in the room grew and the closer we grew in proximity to each other. My heart was feeling more burdensome by the minute as I heard story after story of heartbreak and trial. We also seemed to be growing closer to each other. It was as if we were desperate to find some kind of comfort or warmth. But despite our best efforts, the color of our flesh grew colder and even grayer. I could feel the thumping of my heart pounding in my ears now. It seemed to be slowing down to an occasional small drum... I was fading.

Meanwhile, a new speaker had taken the stage. At this point, you think I would have looked at the speaker closely, but I couldn’t. I only glanced at his form out of the corner of my eye and heard his voice as a mere whisper. My eyes were so intent on the crowd and all of our problems, I was not glancing up. There was an overwhelming sense that my attention could only be focused on the group. A noise from the stage finally brought me to my senses. I glanced over. I just had the power to break free from the clutches of the masses with all of our problems for a split second. I will never forget the rest of my life, what I saw. I looked up at the form the stage and found the person I had been ignoring was my Savior. For a split second and a brief second only WHOOSH…I saw and knew  His love. Not as a notion or an idea. It was a full, moving force of nature. Not only was this love wide and deep as eternity, but it washed away every problem.  Every single issue in the room. Where there had been gray, there was color. There was joy. There was a resolution to every single broken heart. Then, I looked away, and there was gray and flesh and sweat again. I had woken up. 



Numbers 21:9

And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, "We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that everyone that is bitten when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived. 




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