Dreams.

"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions" - Joel 2:28.


 As many of you already know, I'm a very unusual individual.  There is nothing particularly normal about me and I take great pride in that fact most days.  However, the topic I'm about to discuss with you is something that I've not told too many people before.  Mainly because I fear that they will look at me like I'm crazy.  So you can imagine how intimidating it is to be posting it on the world wide web for everyone and their brother's nephew's cousin to see.  If I'm so concerned about it, why even bother posting it?  Right?

But I am compelled to remind the world that my Father is capable of supernatural things.  That we are capable of so much more in Christ than we often give ourselves credit for and that He wishes to communicate with us in so many more beautiful ways than we realize.  He desires a close relationship in which He communicates in all kinds of ways.

Confused?  Not quite sure where I'm going with this?  Let me tell you a story...

Almost five years ago, I woke up startled.  I was trembling and terrified.  I had dreamed that I had been shot once in the chest, and this dream was unlike any other dream I had ever had in my life.  It was so vivid and so ridiculously real that it frightened me.  Could it be a warning?  Could this be the way that I was going to be taken from this world?  I chose to simply ignore it as just an ordinary nightmare.

Until a short time later, when I had another dream.  This time, my mother was shot once in the chest by the same mysterious man in black.  The first dream concerned me; the second dream clearly meant I was deranged and needed to seek help immediately.  I did not like whatever was going on in my mind while I was sleeping.  After crying my heart out, living in a state of paranoia, and convincing myself that something was very clearly wrong with me, I finally decided to seek the help of a trusted saint in my church.

To my surprise, after hearing of my dreams, she did not call me crazy.  She did not immediately send me away to a mental institution or call the FBI to have me detained for being a sociopath.  Instead, she interpreted my dreams and told me to document them.  She had the gift of spiritual dreams and informed me that God was getting my attention; He was speaking to me through these nightly messages.  Before our talk ended, she smiled at me mysteriously and told me to get ready; it was going to be a crazy ride.

Let me tell you something.  She was right.  I walked out of that room feeling as if my entire world had been turned on its axis.  I was relatively new in my faith and although I fully believed in spiritual gifts such as dreams, I had never thought that God would send them to someone as young, inexperienced, and unworthy as I was.

It does not matter how old you are.
It does not matter how inexperienced you are.
It does not matter if you want it or not.
God uses His people and God still gives spiritual gifts.

It is now 2011.  Previously, my last spiritual dream was in 2007.  And as the four intervening years have come and gone, I have realized that four of my dreams have come to pass.  In hindsight, I can now look back on my dreams and understand what God was telling me through them.  Because of this, I've realized that my spiritual dreams usually indicate that, somewhere in my future, I will endure spiritual and/or emotional pain.  However, this spiritual or emotional pain generally leads to great growth in my faith.  God doesn't always show me the growing part in my dreams.  He simply indicates that pain will come.  I have no way of knowing when or how, but He shows me that it is coming.  For example, the pain that He revealed to me in 2007 didn't take place in my life until 2010.  Yet the pain He revealed to me in 2006 happened less than a year later.

You all know that I've just come out of one of the roughest, darkest spots of my life.  Just last year, I was a depressed blob.  After handling that kind of pain, I'll admit that it's not high on my list of priorities to get prepared for the next round.

The other day, I woke up trembling and breathing heavily out of terror.  I could still hear the sound of the gun going off.  I could still feel the impact that the bullets made in my lower back.  The familiar sensation that fell over me in 2006 cascaded over my shaking body in the first few moments of awareness.  I curled myself into a fetal position and tightly closed my eyes in an attempt to block out reality: something was going to hurt.  It had been four years since my last dream and life's pain had fulfilled my previous nightly messages.  Now God was letting me know, once again, that pain and growth was coming.  That it was time for me to stand up out of my corner and come out swinging again.  My heart and mind both cried out, "Not again, Lord!" while my soul rejoiced and shouted, "Hallelujah!  Praise be to God, now and forevermore."

I am terrified, yet excited, of what God has in store for the future.  I'm not looking forward to the pain, but my dream has indicated that I won't be panicked and that my thoughts will remain upon the Lord as I endure this difficult time.  I'm led to believe that this hurt will come from many different people instead of simply from one certain individual.  I'm also led to believe that it will not be their intention to cause me any harm whatsoever and that they will realize what they have done once the hurt has happened.  Of all of my spiritual dreams, the gun man in my most recent dream was the only one to seem repentant and remorseful.  If you find yourself to be one of those individuals, I'd like to take the time now to say that I forgive you.  What you are about to do is ordained and your steps are being ordered.  Your actions are intended toward me for a purpose, a beautiful purpose, and you are simply fulfilling a role in my life that God has given you to play.  I pray that you find mercy and grace. 

Although I've seen this hurt, the only preparation that I can do is to stay rooted in the Word of God.  I don't know when the pain is coming.  I don't know from which direction.  I do know, however, that because my God has shown it to me, it holds great significance and that it will lead to a greater, stronger faith.  That is all that He has chosen to reveal and that is enough.  I trust Him with the rest.