The Blueprint

Ten years ago, I lived in a suburb outside of Seattle, Washington, and couldn’t imagine a day when I wouldn't call the Pacific Northwest my home. At the time, I was a stay-at-home mom to three young children, and my husband and I had recently purchased the home we thought we’d live in forever. Our life wasn’t perfect by any means, but we were surrounded by our friends and family, and part of a local church community. Sure, we didn't have much in savings or take extravagant vacations then, but we had something I think was better. We had contentment, not needing more than we had, and a place where we belonged.

The same, however, could not be said about my spiritual life. During my mid-30s, my faith was challenged on some things I believed about God, particularly the Holy Spirit. It all began when a family member told me that they and others from their church were experiencing God supernaturally. When I heard this, I assumed they were having a mid-life crisis. So, like a responsible firstborn daughter, I set out to show them how they were misinformed or, worse, deceived. I began the only place I knew to start, by reading the Bible to learn about spiritual gifts and the Holy Spirit.

After a few days of my investigation, I felt the presence of God interrupt me, encouraging me to ask questions about what I was reading instead of searching for what I thought I already knew. That was all it took to open my eyes and help me realize that I had been using God’s word to justify what I wanted to believe instead of allowing God to reveal himself. After that, my faith began to grow as I read the Bible to learn about God instead of make a point or intellectual argument. It was also more fun that way, relying on the Holy Spirit instead of my own ability to grasp every detail, historical fact, or nuance since I didn’t (and still don’t) have a theology degree. Instead, it led me to pray more, asking God to help me understand what I was reading.

As I prayed, I confessed that I needed God to reveal himself to me personally because I wasn’t interested in other people's ideas about him. Once, I unintentionally flipped on a religious TV station and saw people doing all sorts of strange things, attributing it to the Holy Spirit. I was honest with God that it didn’t look or sound like what I read about him in his word. If any of that were real, I would need him to show me himself.

The next few weeks were some of the most exciting times of my spiritual life. Once my kids were asleep in bed, I'd go out to the kitchen area, where there was an old rocking chair. I don’t know how many nights in a row I went out there, but I rocked every night in my kitchen for a season, waiting for God to respond to my prayers. Reading about his nature in the Bible and how he spoke to people at different times made me want to know and experience God the same way. For over 30 years, I’d gone to church, believed in God, and loved him, but now I suddenly expected him to show up differently because I asked. 

Night after night, I sat in the dark in my rocking chair, moonlight streaming through the kitchen windows, simply waiting and watching. It was mostly silent except for the occasional creak of my rocker or a nearby owl hooting in a tree. Each night, I waited to see if God would answer me. During that time, I had a series of dreams after I went to bed at night, which I jotted down in a journal. After a few days of this, I began to understand that God was indeed speaking to me, just in his own unique language. He was speaking to me through the images in my dreams. Like how you can sometimes sense God’s presence but not see him, I could sometimes “hear” him in my dreams.

Some weeks later, I visited a small group at a church, where someone laid hands on me and prayed for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I knew I’d already received the Holy Spirit when I first invited Jesus into my life, but I wasn’t opposed to asking for more. So I closed my eyes and prayed to see what God might do. I don’t recall what they said as they prayed because a bright white light appeared before me as they spoke. My jaw must have swung open because people started asking me what was happening. I didn't have any words to respond though. I knew I was in God's presence, and it felt like a sacred moment that didn't need to be shared with everyone immediately.

After that, the dreams continued, and something new happened. I had a series of open visions at night in my room. Once, as I lay awake in bed after my family fell asleep, I noticed bright blue neon lines forming on my bedroom ceiling, kind of like a giant Lite Bright board. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t imagining anything, but the lights were still there when I opened them again. Each night, more lines appeared until, after a week or so, I was staring at what looked like an architectural blueprint on my ceiling. Drops of blue living color traced over the sketched lines each night as I lay awake and gawked, astounded that the God of the Bible still performs signs and wonders and chose to reveal himself to someone as insignificant and ordinary as me. 

Initially, I was fascinated by the way God was revealing himself. Some days, I felt more excited for the evening than the rest of my day because I wanted more spiritual experiences—they made me feel significant, affirmed, and excited. Still, I realized in time that God wasn’t appearing to me this way just to entertain me, although I think that was fine to start, and he probably laughed at some of my reactions. God was speaking to me in dreams and visions because he was inviting me to know him. 

From experience, I think this might be where some others have also gotten stuck after encountering God. It’s entirely possible to get so wrapped up in the experience itself or how it made us feel that we don’t move on to understand what God is saying. I’ve learned that even good things, like spiritual gifts, can become distractions unless we continue in faith and mature spiritually, which happens when we apply God’s word to our lives.

Many of my dreams were metaphors and parables highlighting different stories and themes from the Bible. Once I caught on, I understood that the images I was seeing were helping me relate to and understand God’s word personally, and that’s how the Holy Spirit became my teacher (Jeremiah 31:34 ). For years, I had attended church and other groups, listening to and being taught about God by others. Now, God himself was meeting and teaching me about his ways. A stay-at-home mom whose days consisted of playdates, preschool drop-offs, and Costco runs prayed that the God of the Universe would speak, and he did. It changed my life when I realized he wanted to know and be known by me personally, not simply read about or known through others at church. 

For several years, I wondered why, of all the things the Spirit could have first revealed, He chose those cobalt-colored blueprints on my ceiling. I wondered if they were about my life’s purpose, especially when I was later employed by a megachurch, working on the blueprints and plans for their new campus. As I’ve grown in my relationship with God, however, I’ve realized those plans weren’t about a specific calling, a megachurch campus, or anything else I could be a part of building for God. Nor did the Spirit come rushing into my life to make me a gifted minister, roll around on the floor, or give me an assignment to complete inside a church. They were about the preeminence of Jesus, and the Spirit was revealing that his ministry in my life was about much more than gifts. His presence forms me into God's image, and Jesus is the divine blueprint for my new life–in Him ( Col 1:15, 2 Cor 3:18 ). 

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation (Col 1:15).

The greatest challenge I faced over the following years was conforming to the ideas and image of others instead of God’s blueprint for my life. Along the way, I learned that God doesn’t form us into his image by following or reporting to others and agendas inside a church. Rather, he molds us into his image as we follow and obey Jesus, whose Spirit sanctifies us with his word as we walk with him and learn his ways.

I've learned that sanctification doesn't happen by simply sitting at church because it requires our participation. When God's love fills our hearts, his Spirit compels us to volunteer our lives, not simply attend church on Sundays, and as we do, he dresses us in Jesus’s righteous works, not the traditions, methods, or teachings of other people. This happens progressively throughout our lives because God doesn't seem to be into fast fashion when it comes to our sanctification. Rather, his righteousness is like a bespoke luxury garment that he uniquely designs for each of us. In faith, I had to burn the old, shabby garments of my former life with all its works and how others told me to get dressed so I could be fashioned in the new life God designed for me, custom-made by my Creator. 

I was once told at church, “Find your tribe, find your destiny.” When I tried that, however, I became a mirror image of those teaching such things, repeating their slogans and ideas back to them like a recorded message. But when I stopped looking to others for my destiny and turned to Jesus, I stopped conforming to the rest of the world and other people’s ideas for my life. I learned that God’s will is for me is to be transformed into his image, not another person or a church, and he is so vast, diverse, and plentiful that it looks different on each of us. God's people may not look alike, speak alike, or even vote alike, but we are all guided by his Spirit and characterized by his righteousness, not our own.