dreams

The scriptures consistently tell us that God speaks to his servants in dreams and visions. He often speaks to me in this manner. When he does, it is usually to reveal something that I need to make a focus of prayer or to help me understand something better (sometimes both)....

Messages For The Church

8-27-05 Why Didn't You Call Me...? Healing

I dreamed I was married to a man I did not know very well, and we did not live together in the same house...yet.

It wasn't that we had not been married long enough, we had been married for quite some time. But I still did not know him very well and was still waiting for our home together.

I had a little pet that got injured. So, in the emergency, I opened the yellow pages and began desperately looking for a veteranarian who could help.

I finally found one and he came to my home. While he was there attending to my pet. My husband came by.

When he saw the situation, he said, I'm a veteranarian, why didn't you call me...?

I was so ashamed, how could I have forgotten that my own husband was a veteranarian?

Here I was searching desperately through the yellow pages looking for a vet when I had been married to one all along!

All I had to have done was call my husband. He would not have refused to help his own wife.

Aren't we, all to often, like I was in this dream? Isn't it a shame we do not know our husband (savior) better than we do? Isn't it a shame we forget about him entirely sometimes? We are not living in the same house with him yet, but we will be. He is still preparing a place for us. But is that an excuse to put off getting to know him and calling on him to help in our times of need--even and especially when we have physical needs?

Let's start looking to him first when we have a physical need.

March 2004 The Pond.............. Breaking Strongholds

The scriptures consistently tell us that God speaks to his servants in dreams and visions. He often speaks to me in this manner.

When he does, it is usually to reveal something that I need to make a focus of prayer or to help me understand something better (sometimes both).

That was the case concerning a dream I had where the Holy Spirit revealed to me tactics the enemy uses to keep people bound up in addiction.

In the dream, it was a very dark night, and I was being chased by several vicious Doberman Pincers. As I was running from them, I saw a pond with a little diving/fishing platform built a short distance from the shore. If I coud swim to the platform I could climb up to safety away from the dogs.

But there was a problem. There was a strong current spanning the short distance between the shore and the platform. It makes no sense whatsoever, but the water was rough, like river rapids, with the current flowing towards the shore away from the safety of the platform.

I was certain I was not a strong enough swimmer to make it through the rapids to the platform, and as I hesitated, suddenly a person (whom I knew to be addicted to drugs) appeared over to my left (the dogs seemed to pose no danger whatsoever to her) and pointing to the pond, she said, "get in the current, it will float you around to the platform. It's easier that way."

I looked out on the pond, and sure enough, around the circumference of the pond I could see a gentle undercurrent. It was glowing, and I could very easily see it now that it had been pointed out to me.

It was immediately obvious that floating the long way around would get me where I wanted to go with little or no effort on my part. The current would do all the work, and gently float me to the platform - to the place of relief.

On closer inspection however, I saw that where the short span of raging rapids led directly to the safety of the platform, the gentle current actually gave it a wide berth - never actually coming close to it. The appearance of floating me gently to relief and safety was deceptive.

Its appearance of taking me to safety was a deceptive optical illusion.

If I took the gentle current, as advised, I would end up stranded in deep water far from the safety of the platform, and if at any point from the current I decided to leave it and swim for the platform, I would have a much greater distance to swim than if I just went ahead and braved the rapids for a very short distance.

At that point in the dream I woke up.

Interpretation: The dogs represented the demonic tormentors of stress/fears/anxieties.

The platform was God's place of peace and safety for us --only found in Jesus Christ.

The rapids represented doing things God's way (which is not always the easy way). Swimming the rapids would have required giving my fear to God, then deliberately stepping into rough water. A step of faith.

The person who was pointing out the easy way to relief was the Spirit of Escape (always a doorway to addiction).

(rejecting the help God gives (which usually requires effort and faith) in favor of the quick fix which (which requires little effort, and no faith) always results in separating us from the safety and protection of Jesus Christ).

We end up in the deceptive current of rebellion and escape anytime we choose to do things our way instead of making the effort of going with God.

Anger can slip us into the current if we grab a cigarette in order to escape the stress.

Fear can slip us into the current if we escape to any method of relief besides Jesus. (anxiety/depression)

The goal of the Spirit of Addiction (a very real non-benevolent being) is to lull us into complacence (through easy escapes) until we find ourselves stranded out in the deep with nothing to hold onto - the gentle current is suddenly gone and we are sinking...

Better to take the hand of Jesus, and become willing, by faith, to submit to the temporary unpleasantness of the pressure, and let him help us through the rapids.

Personal Messages For Butch or Myself

But perhaps helpful or encouraging to others

1-31-05 (a vision)

I heard a voice saying, "We keep the door open all the time."

Then I saw a very ugly woman rushing to squeeze through the open door as if she was afraid it would close before she got away.

I believe the woman represented a spirit of escape (she was trying to get away (escape)...

But what did the open door represent?

It could be different things to different people. The important thing is to do a ruthless inventory of our lives and homes, and make certain all points of contact are gotten rid of, so the open doors of enemy access are closed.

1984 I was lying on my couch taking an early afternoon nap, and I dreamed my husband came home early and sat on the rocking chair facing the sofa.

I said, "What a nice surprise. You're home early."

At that point (beginning at the top of his head) his body began morphing into a waterspout of demons rushing straight for my throat.

I knew I could call on Jesus to save me, but the demons were strangling me. I couldn't get any air and could not speak, so I began calling out to him in my mind.

In this dream, I lost consciousness calling silently on Jesus.

When I awoke, no residual yuk from the dream remained--only peace was there. I knew I had received a vision from God.

I vividly remembered that vision some 20 years later as John Wentz was attempting to strangle me to death (in his first attempt to kill me). In the midst of that horror, how could I have remembered a dream I had 2 decades previously?

But I did and immediately realized who was really attacking me. I immediately stopped all physical struggle. I could not speak, but as I lost consciousness from lack of oxygen, I was silently calling on Jesus.

I didn't know if I would regain consciousness here on earth or in Heaven, but before I blacked out all fear had left--and when I came to, only peace remained.

I know one of the reasons I am alive today to tell this story is because Jesus prepared me to survive that strangling almost 20 years in advance--by giving me a dream that only he could cause me remember and utilize as I was struggling for my life in March of 2003.

Be careful what you eat...

... to the hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet

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