God’s Poppies

Just before I woke this morning I had a dream that left me rattled until I wrote it down and asked God to talk me through it…

In my dream I was leading a church that met in an old traditional church building with pews & all, that I knew from my childhood. The people in it were those I knew from a more modern, ‘charismatic’ congregation of my adult life. I was practicing a sermon that I knew would be uncompromising and challenging, though I can’t now remember the exact words I said, I just knew I had to convey the serious decision they had to make in order to leave their religious assumptions and move on with God.
Then my dream shifted to a cottage with a beautiful garden (it was a house I used to live in where God had told me He had commanded His blessing). I was showing my Mum a beautiful poppy plant that I had been given and was growing in a container. One of my sons (in the dream aged about 5) came into the garden and we asked him if he had been given a poppy too. He smiled broadly with delight and gestured to the whole garden where poppies were growing wild & rampantly, and said they were all his. They were breath-takingly glorious in their abundant beauty. I noticed that some were already dying, but still we realised that his were better, growing naturally where they were. My solitary cultivated poppy seemed pathetic and totally irrelevant by comparison.

As I woke I could feel the heart of God in the dream, so I prayed it through, & this is the interpretation that I received:

The context of the dream was “ministry” – I was leading a church. The church was made of ‘charismatic’ people who thought they were part of the “New” but were actually stuck in religious habits, as represented by the old traditional building. I knew they wouldn’t like it, but I also knew I had to tell them to change, otherwise they would never break free.

The rapid shift to a garden revealed something that God wanted to bless. My cultivated poppy represented our tendency to contain and artificially cultivate “ministries”, and show off to other people to admire what we had “grown” ourselves. But my little son represented the innocent wisdom of the young, and the new generation of ministers that God is raising up: ministers who understand that true ministry isn’t about containing and artificially cultivating – it’s about appreciating what God is growing and letting it flourish & spread where He has naturally planted it, free from control. Even allowing some plants to die naturally was so much better than artificially prolonging their life where they were contained & unable to spread & flourish.

And I saw a three-fold significance of the flowers being poppies:

1/ Poppies are brilliant at being self-sustaining, natural spreaders. They produce their own seeds and can reproduce each year with little assistance. In fact they are so rampant some people view them as weeds. This is God’s picture of the Kingdom ministry that HE plants: self-spreading & abundant, but sometimes unwelcome by those who like to be in control.

2/ Poppies symbolise remembrance. True ministry is built on encouraging growth that springs from remembering each encounter of God’s goodness & faithfulness. A cursory study of how important memorials were to God, and how often He says to remember, will confirm this – eg Josh 4:6 – “We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’  Then you can tell them…”

3/ Poppies are often exploited for evil. In my dream I was not exploiting, purely growing mine for an appreciation of its beauty (though still ultimately containing & controlling), but as I prayed it through I was reminded that many people have grown poppies for opium – taking the seeds that are meant for new growth, and using them for selfish gain, exploiting the addictive tendencies of people. As a picture of organised church that is sobering to say the least, speaking of the addictive cycle of ministers cultivating beautiful-looking but ‘contained’ religion, keeping people addicted to religion & preventing them from reproducing & spreading in new growth.

The age of my (now teenage) son in the dream also seemed significant: five is the number of God’s grace, goodness & favour. We HAVE to remember that ministry is not about our own effort and what we build. It’s about receiving what God has given by His grace, and resisting the urge to interfere, ‘add’ or tweak.

So although the two halves of the dream initially felt very different, it quickly became clear to me that the first part in the church building set the context for the second part in the garden. God is still asking me (and you other ministers) to keep sending his message, even (or especially) to those who believe they are already part of the New. There are still many people stuck in the old, oblivious to their addiction to religion. We MUST abandon ALL of our old religious habits, must stop trying to contain, control and artificially cultivate, and must seek only to serve what He is growing, letting it grow and spread naturally. For those who can’t break the addiction to containing and artificially cultivating may end up with a beautiful little specimen, but compared to the rampantly spreading glory of God’s naturally spreading growth, it’s pathetic.

Today, may we not assume this is the weakness of others, but may we all take the time to ask God to reveal to us where we have taken over & are trying to tweak or contain what He intended for rampant growth. We in the Western Church have all been trained in this addictive cycle for centuries – it’s in all of us. But we must now see that ministry is not about having a perfect specimen to show off to others as if we can somehow take credit for it: it’s about repenting for our controlling interference and just revelling in the abundant glory & grace of God’s own garden.

PS EDITED TO ADD:
Just after I published this post I realised there was a fourth, key significance of the poppies: historically they grew on the battlefields after much blood had been shed, fertilising the ground. God’s abundant ministry-growth does not require our interference, but symbolically, the blood of our sacrifice as we take up our cross & lay down our lives in service of Him, IS required.