Which mat are you standing on?

Two men guarded a modern building inside its glass entrance. The taller stood on a large, square mat—the shorter man on a smaller one. The mats overlapped where they touched.

In my dream, the short man said, “How can you straighten the mat while you’re standing on it?”

Eric Knoll, Unsplash

I have been puzzling over why intelligent people can be so deceived. America is being torn in half by lies and corruption; Europe by fear and debt; the world by need and greed, while the dragon of terror roars its ten-crowned heads.

The mats represent mindsets

An event in Soweto in February, 1984, challenged mine. I heard a man say, “Now put your hand in the air.” I turned my attention to the voice. In the crowd in front of me, a ten-year-old raised her right arm.

The man said, “Not that one—the other one.” Her left arm was twisted and withered. With great effort, she raised her withered arm until it became normal. It took ten seconds. Her mother beside her wept.

As a scientist, I had an explanation for everything, but a creative miracle forced me to change my worldview. I had to get off my mat.

People are deceived because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie (2 Thessalonians 2:11).

 “Unfair!” you cry. “If God sends the delusion, how can we blame them?”

But believing the lie is a consequence of rejecting the truth in the first place. When we reject truth, our mat shifts. From that position, the other mats—even the building itself—appear crooked.

Is your mat straight?

The men on the mats guard the entrance to a magnificent building—the way of Jesus.