The weather is drop dead gorgeous with a gentle breeze and bluebird skies accentuated by a few puffy white clouds. South Beach is crowded with bikini clad sun worshippers, loud music is playing on boom boxes, and the scent of saltwater is permeating the Miami air.
I decide to cruise down the beach to enjoy the scenery. I don’t get far before I’m absolutely smitten. There sits the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. She is the Goddess from Ipanema; yes she is tall, and she is definitely tan, and she is most definitely young and lovely. Cha-cha-cha…
I suck in my abdomen and flex my abs and stroll past her; “I be styling and profiling, I tell you – oh yeah…”
YEOW! She’s topless!
I stare at her with my mouth hanging open as I walk by. I go about twenty feet past where she’s sitting, and then do my best to act like I’ve forgotten something back at my pickup truck. As nonchalantly as I can muster, I quickly turn around and walk back towards her for another look.
My gosh! She’s beautiful! I can’t take my eyes off her breasts.
Yikes!
Just then she looks at me with big green catlike eyes and flashes me a gorgeous smile with the whitest teeth and reddest lips I’ve ever seen. She motions me over to where she’s sitting and gently pats the towel beside her for me to sit down. I look behind me to see if there’s someone behind me, but no one is there; she’s motioning to me. My heart is palpitating, my mouth is dry, but I smile back at her and meekly walk over to join her on the fluffy beach towel.
She purrs, “I couldn’t help but notice that you’re getting sunburned, would you like for me to rub some sun tan lotion on your back?”
“Sure, that would be nice.” I was embarrassed because when I answered my voice cracked; it reminded me of a nervous kid just reaching puberty and voice change.
I’m mesmerized as she gently rubs my neck and back. It feels really good! She tells me to lie on my back and she will apply some lotion to my-my-my front. I comply and she starts rubbing soothing balm all over my chest with her long fingers. Then her hand gently begins descending towards my abdomen as she leans over draping me with her long beautiful hair and kisses me with the most moist and best kiss I’ve ever experienced.
Ping!
Suddenly I wake up. I look all around and see darkness in my bedroom and hear the rhythmic snoring of my wife. I’ve been dreaming. Whew! I get up and get a glass of water and take two aspirin to quell the headache that I’ve developed. I look at my watch and it’s one a.m. I decide to try to go back to sleep.
It took some time for me to drift back off to sleep again, but when I finally succeeded, it was though I’d hit pause on the DVD player and when I reached sleep again, pressed play; I was right back on the beach making out with the topless girl and now I was fondling her breasts. Whoa Nellie!
Ping!
I woke up again and this time I said to heck with this, and came into my office and am now sitting at my desk writing Words for the Day about this traumatic experience. So I sit here drenched in sweat with a pounding headache trying to come up with a deeper meaning to this experience.
I have concluded that this dream typifies sin. The Bible tells us that God does not tempt us. All temptation comes from satan and his legions of fallen angels. Granted He allows it, as nothing can happen without his omnipotent consent; however the Bible assures us that God always provides a means of escape. 1 Cor. 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
This is good and yet it can be bad. It’s good if we take the escape route; it’s bad if we ignore it and go ahead and succumb to the temptation. My escape from my dream girl sin was to wake up, and when I went back to sleep and the dream persisted I decided to just get up and not sleep anymore. Had I not done so, I fear that adultery was next on the agenda and amazingly even though it was just a dream I did not want to commit that dark sin even in my dreams. This shows me how far I have come in my thinking.
I do confess that the song, “The girl from Ipanema” has been playing in my mind all morning and I have wistfully looked out the window and reminisced about seeing that little beauty in my dreams more than once, but I did take the escape route.
James 1:13
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;”