26 February 2024
I dreamt there were maggots in my arm. I pulled one out and saw that it was colourful. I placed it on a table or tray, only for it to burrow straight through. I began looking for glass jars to contain it. After finding a glass jar, I stared into it with the colourful maggot inside. Then I stumbled into a large public shower room that was full of maggots, and I was stepping on them.
I did not understand the dream at the time. The next morning I was praying with a church friend who is also a church leader. I asked him what the dream might mean. He said he did not know and suggested I ask God. I did so in prayer, and the insight came almost immediately.
The night before the dream I had spent four hours on my phone playing a puzzle game app. The phone has a bright, colourful glass screen. The maggot was colourful. I had been looking for glass jars and then staring into one. The connection became clear: the phone and the app had become an object of excessive attention — a form of idolatry expressed through addiction. The maggots represented something invasive and unclean that had taken root, and the public shower full of them, with me stepping on them, suggested how widespread and exposed the problem was once I saw it.
Scripture is direct about anything that captures the heart in place of God:
“Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
(1 John 5:21 ESV)
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”
(Colossians 3:5 ESV)
“I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.”
(Psalm 101:3 ESV)
God is not indifferent when our attention and affection are given elsewhere. Paul writes:
“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?”
(1 Corinthians 10:21–22 ESV)
The Lord is jealous for the heart that belongs to Him. When something else begins to claim the time, focus, and devotion that are His, He does not remain silent.
When the meaning first became clear, there was a sharp sense of despair. Seeing the corruption for what it was felt heavy. Yet that very exposure was the beginning of something better. The Lord’s discipline is not rejection but proof of His love:
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives… For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
(Hebrews 12:5–6, 11 ESV)
“Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”
(Revelation 3:19 ESV)
“Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.”
(Proverbs 12:1 ESV)
Criticism that aligns with biblical teaching is good, no matter where it comes from. It is far better to be corrected than to remain stubborn and blind. Humility opens the door to repentance; stubbornness keeps the maggots hidden and multiplying. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4:6). When I stopped defending the wasted hours and simply turned from them, the initial heaviness began to lift. What first felt like despair became strangely refreshing — the relief that comes when something unclean is finally brought into the light and dealt with.
“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
(Acts 3:19 ESV)
“For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”
(2 Corinthians 7:10 ESV)
After that night I stopped giving the app so much of my time. The change was not driven by willpower alone, but by the conviction that God had spoken and that continuing would be a refusal of His kindness.
“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”
(Proverbs 4:23 ESV)
I am still learning to welcome the Lord’s discipline rather than resist it, to stay humble when He exposes what is wrong, and to turn from the bright glass screens that so easily take the attention that belongs to Him. True freedom begins when we stop being stubborn and allow His correction to lead us into repentance.
For more information https://findgod.help/en/Sin.html, https://findgod.help/en/Sin2.html, https://findgod.help/en/Repentance.html and https://findgod.help/en/Discipleship.html
