I recognized my twenty-one-year-old self in what seemed to be happening right before my eyes. Most of what I saw were short glimpses of different scenes, like previews of a movie. In the first scene, I was speaking to someone on the phone. It was the same day I had the horrifying conversation with the record label that halted my music career. I winced, wishing I could forget that terrible day. But as I watched the conversation I was having, it seemed to be going much better than I remembered. All I could hear was my side of the conversation. And what was that I heard in the tone of my voice? It sounded like relief.
“… Thank you so much Mr. Connell. I was gettin’ pretty worried there for a while. So glad everything got straightened out. So when do I get back in the studio?”… “Tomorrow sounds great… Thank you again Mr. Connell. Talk to you later. Bye.”
What? This didn’t happen.
A flash converted my view to a new scene. Your grace is so amazing, Forgiving me all my sin, Your Mercy is unfading, Restore me once again. As condemnation creeps its head into the door, I will find my hope in You my Lord… There I was, singing on a huge stage before thousands. It was not difficult to see that I loved what I was doing. I was worshiping my King, and the crowd was singing the song right back at me. WOW! The energy was amazing! As I watched a much younger version of myself and a band building up the dynamics moving into the chorus, I felt my heart flutter. Not just because the music took it there, but because this is how I always wanted to live and serve my King. This was my dream. This was reaching the great masses for His glory. If only this could have been my life.
“What is this?”
“This is what would have been if I had blessed you as a professional musician.”
Confusion set a cloudy disposition on my mind. It seemed like everything Jesus was showing me was proving that He should have given me the desire of my heart. This was amazing. Being able to spread His truth to the masses was so pleasing to my heart. In this ‘would be’ reality, I felt I was being greatly useful for the cause that I was created to serve, and it made me feel great to think that I was pleasing my King in that way.
I didn’t know what Jesus meant by the whole exactly comment. But at the very least, I think He was trying to say that He had done what was best with my life. How was this proving that? I would have thought He had better tact.
Another flash and the movie transitioned again. In this scene I was signing autographs, but then the scene faded quickly. The flashes were coming more rapidly now. The next scene I was performing for a large church. Tears welled up in my eyes as I watched. Quickly the scene changed again. In this one I had broken out in laughter sitting with my guitar, ready for play. The guy sitting across from me was a well known Christian musician, one of my heroes of the faith. One of the only artist’s that I made a point of buying every one of his records. And apparently, in ‘what would have been’, I was writing songs with him. Could life have been any better?
A flash transitioned the scene to a recording studio where my hero and I were standing together on opposite sides of a mic in a recording studio. We were singing a song I had never heard before. The song was about God’s grace being sufficient in our weakness. It was mostly acoustic, with light percussion, but the vocal harmonies were incredible. A melodic cry of the heart. As I looked at this scene, many puzzle pieces of my heart seemed to slide together as I felt inspired to write music for my King for the first time in a long time.
Another flash and I was sitting on a couch in what looked like a living room, the likes of which I have never seen. It seemed like a few years had gone by. I must have been in my mid-twenties now. I had let my hair grow out to just passed my jaw line. Kicked back on the couch, I was just watching some TV.
All of a sudden, a young lady who looked my age sneaked in. She was smirking in a playful type of way, so I immediately knew she was no thief in need of a good home invasion. She snuck in crouched, moving low, coming right up behind the couch. Reaching over with both hands, she covered my eyes. “Guess who?”
A smile erupted on my face. “Jenny?” I said with a playful tone.
“Nope.”
“Linda?”
“No.”
“Mom?”
“Ummm… No.”
“I give up.”
“It’s me silly.” As she said it, she jumped over the couch and into my lap.
“Oh right, Danay, my girlfriend. Guess I should have known it was you.”
Apparently I knew this girl, although I never met her in my real life. She was a pretty girl, but she was not my Melody. She was not the one God had given me as a wife, and through whose love, God had motivated me to be more than a shadow of resolve in this life for His glory. Oh well, we all have crushes, but I wondered when I would meet Melody in this ‘would be life’.
Flash. Now I was standing center stage at a large church. But this time I wasn’t singing. For the first time I didn’t like what I was seeing in this movie. No, let me be blunt, for the first time I HATED what I was seeing. Two others were with me on that stage, a preacher, and the one I called Danay in the scene prior. We were getting married.
“Where’s Melody?” I asked Jesus, with a dash of angst. I couldn’t imagine my life without her. She was the most beautiful Melody my heart had ever heard, or my eyes ever seen.
“You never met her”, Jesus said gently.
Flash. Now Danay and I were sitting around a dining room table having a laugh with two little ones, a little boy and girl. The children were maybe six or seven.
It was difficult for me to even contemplate this reality any more. I didn’t know these children. Although I’m sure I would have grown to love them, had this ‘would be’ life really happened, all my heart wanted to do was rebel against what I was seeing. I missed the three amazing children God gave me in my real life. There were my boys, Willem and Tristan, who were men now. Tristan was living abroad on the mission field, ministering to an unreached people group in South America. Willem had become a Professor of Theology at Southwestern Seminary. My heart leapt into my throat with pride at the men God made them to be. And I could never forget my precious daughter Lily. Yes, she was married some years back to a pastor and they had kids of their own, but she would always be my precious Lily.
But they weren’t a part of this ‘would be life’, and it was… appalling. Unacceptable even. My rebellion against what I was seeing got the best of me. I tried to turn around, but Jesus steadied my sight back at what would’ve been. “You need to see this to understand.”
More scenes of concerts, recording studios, churches, a hundred cities, a million faces. Once again, I was in hog heaven with pride over what could have been. They rolled by in a blur. It seemed like years went by in minutes.
One scene it looked like I, alongside my wife and two children were moving into a large house, verging on a mansion. Surely this must be some kind of mistake. If I had made that much money, and desired to please God, wouldn’t I have the sense to give it back to Him? Didn’t I see how many starving families I could feed and missionaries I could send by downsizing to even moderately comfortable? Why was I not more mindful of using the resources God had given me to help those in need? What foolishness was this? I must have had a really dramatic look on my face because Jesus shrugged and said, “You would have led a different life. You would have valued different things.”
As the 4D movie played on, my ‘would be’ kids grew up, my wife and I got older, and scene after scene revealed what our relationships had become. One of the scenes said it all. My son couldn’t have been more than 17. He was wearing mostly black, with an artsy haircut many teen rock guitarists like to wear.
“I will not let you move in with this girl out of wedlock!” I yelled at my son.
He rolled his eyes in response. “Like you live any differently. The day you decide to practice what you preach to everyone else and actually go to church, pray, read the Bible, and love others,” he made dramatic quotation symbols with his hands as he said love others, “on that day, I will move out of Trish’s place and get my life right too, okay.” He turned defiantly and walked out our oversized front door.
“Son, get back in here right now!”
I fell on my knees and cried out to God for help.
It hit me at that moment that out of the many highlights that covered what my life would have been, this was the first scene I actually witnessed myself praying. This was terrible. Did I forget prayer in this ‘would be’ life, or were those clips just left out? How could it be possible that I would not continually seek God in prayer? How could I survive? For that matter, how far away from God had I fallen? How could I think of finding life anywhere else?
I looked to Jesus to see if He had read my thoughts once again, but He seemed unaffected. He continued to watch the movie. And since He was watching, I thought I should watch too.
The years flew by before my eyes, and there was much of the same. “A sea of faces”, as one songwriter put it. Besides my ‘would be’ wife, there weren’t many faces I saw many times over. I don’t know what happened to our kids after their teenage years. I don’t know if I ever joined a local church. This was not how I envisioned my life if my dreams had come true. I remember how great my passion was for God when I first set out to accomplish my dreams. But it seemed that if music had taken off that my relationship with Him would not have. Like a jet plane that contented itself with rolling round and round the runway, never really taking off to soar to great heights, I seemed to somehow keep my spirit from loving God in this way. Didn’t I know that I was made to fly? Was this really the dream-life I had always wanted?
The Dream Awakening 
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