His guidance is a most comforting way indeed

Jim Honeycutt

Chaplain-Baptist Minister

As a man given to dreams, I have often been teased by friends and called a dreamer. A close acquaintance used to tell me I needed to lay off the twinkies before I went to bed at night. And though it is a common occurrence for me to drift off into the realm of dreams while I sleep, I don’t actually live in the land of fantasy. Yes, I do reflect on them. But then again, I tend to ponder many aspects of my life.

I have often felt that because my mind is a near constant whirl of thought during the daylight hours, that my dreams act as a sort of filter, arranging and rearranging the information it has gathered during my waking. The other thing my dreams do is help me work through and apply scripture to my life. Particularly when the stresses of daily life have pushed hard against me.

As a teenager, I learned that when near overwhelming problems arose that I couldn’t see the answer to, that if I would pray, turn it over to God, somehow in the night steps of solution would make themselves clear. This has served me well over the years.

Most people wrestle with decisions they need to make, tossing and turning in their beds, which is often disruptive. I look forward to sleeping on it, in a very practical way. I have developed the attitude by experience that God cares, God hears, God answers. Not always does that mean it is easy to move forward, yet it is reassuring and strengthens my relationship with my Heavenly Father to know He is concerned with every aspect of my being.

Looking back and pondering my life I see very clearly that the first 20 years of my existence, I was searching for who I was as a person. I was introduced to Jesus at a very young age, and He has walked with me since that time. But as a child and into my teenage years, I wrestled with issues of anger and at time outright rebellion. It would take a lot of couch time to unravel the whys of the self-inflicted wounds I placed around my neck. Praise The Lord that not only did He see me through my adolescence, Jesus has become a beacon of the patience and care extended I so desperately needed. A strong rock that I cling to in the storms of life.

Moving past high school, I found myself drifting and in need of companionship until I married my soulmate, Melissa, at 21. I look back at that time and can clearly say it was God’s hand that not only brought us to each other, He held us together when the world did its best to tear us apart.

I spent the next 20 years trying to become who I thought I was to be, to a head strong individual learning to compromise with a mate was difficult, even when you deeply love them. But again, Jesus was there to speak truth into our lives, creating avenues of trust that were strengthened with time. Having a child in the midst of trying to establish careers was challenging, but we looked to God to help us make sense of what it meant to be a loving parent.

And in times we lost sight of the goal, but He kept us moving forward by the gentle touch of His loving grace. His mercy taught us to be merciful with each other as we matured in our parenting. When a difference of opinions arose in the best way to handle child rearing, He taught us to respect the ideas without attacking each other. We stood united in front of our daughter, desiring her to know how much we loved and wanted the best for her. Through the ups, downs, twists and turns, of raising a child, we were never alone. Besides our own parents who gave sound advice as they saw fit, we had the presence of Jesus Christ. And when the time was right, and she could understand we brought her to Jesus. She took His hand and completed our small family circle. Over the next 20 years of my life I let go of all I thought I should have become and allowed Christ to make me into who I was called to be. The ego I had carried so proudly melted away and the hardness I had allowed to accumulate was refined into determination to surrender my all. This is my testimony, life with Jesus has become sweeter than any dream I could have imagined.

I look forward to the continuing journey and greatly anticipate the next 20 years. With that in mind, I place these written words as stones of remembrance, so as not to forget from where I came. But more importantly, where I am going.