There I was, feeling guilty; sitting in this situation like we were seemingly doing something wrong – but also feeling like I finally made it.

We sat in a room that felt like a closet because of the secrets kept inside it. But it was really a classroom with a projector screen. On the screen I saw a map of Atlanta. Also on the screen was my car, driving recklessly across the red and blue lines of the map.

Like a woman describing the weather, I vocally explained this visual to my counterparts. Also like the weather woman, I was just as unsure as anyone. Chef and Chester and I watched as my car took impossible short cuts; leaping over entire towns in Georgia to avoid traffic. I drove recklessly to circumvent construction. But my perspective was always peripheral, never personal. At this moment, I never saw from inside the car.

As I watched this with a sense of wonder and confusion, a new emotion came over me – awareness. I now fully realized how dangerous was my driving. The truth began to swallow me…my car might never recover from the wear & tear caused by my recklessness….And how have I not died yet?

Just as this revelation unfolded in my heart, Chef said, “So, you’re doing at this company what you’ve always done. You’re trying to climb to the top.”

Interpretation comes in floods.

Chef and Chester both represent leaders in various restaurants where I’ve worked. The three of us in that room together felt like a secret society meeting of leaders conspiring how to manipulate the masses and sway them in our favor. Despite my select moments of servanthood over the years, selfishness reigns on the throne of my heart. I work unto the glory of myself, not to God. And as long as I view my job as something I can control, where I can express MY gifts; following unsafe short cuts and a twisted sense of reality – I put myself in grave danger.

But if I humble myself before the Lord, He will lift me up. I know this because told me it to me today. He said this: there’s grace. I’m grateful for grace.

Oh, nap dreams; born on
Sunday afternoons. Born to reveal in us what
must
die.