November 8, 1997, I was living in Paris, France, trying to make sense of a life that was spiritually bankrupt. I was nurturing a deep interest in New Age philosophy, reading about how to turn within myself to attain new heights. Certain that my mother was wrong when she repeatedly advised me to put all my trust in God, I argued with her that God expected me to manage my life on my own. She remained unmoved in her faith, and I saw that as naïve.
While I believed in God, once in a while called on God, and at times even assumed that He heard me, I felt nothing intimate enough to call a relationship. I thought God was more of a spectator. I was stubborn in my conviction that I was supposed to shoulder all the wrongs in life and pull myself up by my bootstraps–be strong, tough it out, make it work, elevate yourself. New Age comforted me, convincing me that I was a self-contained pillar of power, if only I could learn to tap into it.
I was given a dream that rattled me.
I was outside at night, dragging a garden hose attached to a faucet on my parents’ house all the way to a property across the street. There was a hut built on stilts there that was on fire, and I felt obligated to save it. It was a lot of work. When the fire was finally extinguished I climbed up inside what was left of the smoldering hut and looked out. All around me was chaos, stampeding animals that looked like wildebeests charged up and down the alleys. I watched in horror as they snatched up smaller animals and children that were outside after dark, carrying them off in their mouths.
The shocking scene abruptly changed to a peaceful, sunny morning. Now I was inside my childhood bedroom. It was empty of everything except a wall mirror and a swing hanging from the ceiling. I was swinging high, like a little girl on a playground, sunlight filtering through a tree and shining into the room. I was safe and completely carefree. But then I noticed something on the wall next to the mirror that cause me to stopped swinging, a word that looked like it had been written with a finger on a steamy window. It read, “juillet,” French for July. I stared at it, having no idea why it was there. I got off the swing to leave the room and passed by the mirror, startled to see my reflection was that of an expressionless clown. I woke up.
A lot going on there.
I felt it was mandatory that I take matters into my own hands, trying to save what had no foundation, a manmade structure made to elevate man. New Age teaches that we can elevate ourselves, that we can become our own little gods to see things as they really are, and be how we are meant to be. Jesus is looked at as merely a man who attained spiritual enlightenment, no better than Buddha or any other of the “spiritual masters.” I was ignorant of the Bible and years ago had set aside the Jesus I loved as a child. I knew He was an important figure, but I had yet to understand that He is indispensable. He’s God, and we will never be that. He isn’t just one way to heaven, He’s the only way.
What do we learn from the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11? That we are to glorify God and lift up His name, not lift up and glorify ourselves. Lucifer got zapped right out of heaven for suggesting he would become like the Most High. God scattered the people from the Babel tower they had made to lift themselves to heaven, and He confused their language. We can’t get there on our own.
The tower in my dream was set ablaze. Fire is one way God judges evil. When I still had the desire to climb what was left of the hut, all I saw was demonic activity, and I was powerless to stop it.
I went from hell to heaven in that dream. I was shown the stark difference between chaos and peace, evil and good, darkness and light. I was also shown that I was a clown without joy, a fool.
We need to stand strong against the foolish influence of the New Age that’s pushing its way into our churches, blurring what God has said, and making less of Jesus than He is. It needs to be seen for what it is. It’s demonic.
The writing on the wall was prophetic. It was in that month, fourteen years later, after many trials and errors, that I finally surrendered to the Lord. All my efforts to elevate myself I relinquished. Jesus would be the One to lift me up, for His glory.
O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps. (Jeremiah 10:23)
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