They say that all people dream at night, as a means to process and categorize our memories and thoughts, as a way to re-set the brain, and as a way for The Lord to even speak to us.
About the latter – very smart for Him to do this, when we can’t argue or interrupt Him 🙂
Prior to the Race I remembered very few dreams, and when I did wake with recollection, the details would quickly evaporate despite my attempt to salvage and preserve them.
However, I have had some interesting encounters with dreams the last few months…
I had a dream in South Africa that I had died and was conversing with Jesus outside of what seemed to be where I’d enter Heaven. The focus wasn’t on what it looked like or even what Jesus looked like, it was just on a conversation we were having. Jesus was asking me if I’d like to enter, and I stood where I was and asked Him if I could go back because I hadn’t experienced two specific things yet.
I’ve been writing down my dreams just in case God has anything to show me or teach me.
At first I didn’t really see much significance to this particular dream, until later that day when I realized…
…that those two things were not what I thought they would be; I didn’t ask Jesus if I could go back to Earth to establish myself in career success, or to see more of the world and travel.
These are the things I pursued prior to the Race.
But instead, I asked The Lord if I could go back because I really wanted to be a lover of people; an encouragement, a cheerleader of others’ lives, present, intentional, generous, available, welcoming, I wanted to be the difference, a tipper-of-the-scales, a momentum-builder, to help people re-gain focus and and perspective, to be shoulder to shoulder helping people truly to live.
This was a new part of me, the blossom of seeds planted all throughout my life, and it was so beautiful to me that I didn’t want to enter Heaven until I had experienced this.
That was February.
In March, we were in Swaziland, a country we were told that had a busy spiritual atmosphere, but not in a good way. I have the belief that in as much as there are physical boundaries to define land as continents and countries, that there perhaps is also a similar format for the spiritual, and Africa definitely has a different “feel” than North America.
So, I love to sleep. And I am the kind of person who sleeps great every night. Except in Swaziland. It felt like my brain was racing while I was sleeping, I’d dream very fast-paced dreams, didn’t feel rested, and thought it was due to a lack of physical exercise during the day, or the slower pace of living on top of a mountain.
But my squad-mates were making similar comments; there were many dreams that were hurried, people felt tired all the time, there was a general lack of motivation in our day-to-day activities of manual labor and being with the kids at the children’s home we lived at called El Shaddai. This is when I learned a little more about spiritual influences and perspectives. The Bible says to “stay alert and be persistent in your prayers” Colossians 4:2. Perhaps we need to not ignore the spiritual realm, perhaps when we want to be ignorant especially of the “evil”…because it’s creepy and weird and perhaps contagious?!…we are really doing ourselves a dis-service because we aren’t alert or anticipatory.
And so me and the girls in my room moved from defence to offence. We would pray before bed, we would thank The Lord for His protection, and we would have calm and restful sleeps. I’ve learned a lot on this trip, but Swaziland is where I participated in the things I had learned about regarding prayer.
Speaking of dreams…here’s a different angle: Swaziland was where I realized I love to pray, to intercede, to fight for what belongs to us as children of the Most High God.
That was March.
During the month of April, we were in Northern Ireland for 3 weeks, Dublin for 2 weeks. Our first westernized country in 7 months. (Insert an Amen – but I won’t get into that here.)
We served at the Vineyard Church in Coleraine, a church that is very relationship-focused, and also active in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Being around people who intentionally make themselves a presence in your life, who are generous, love authentically, and honoring of The Lord, necessitated a lot of conversations and experiences where The Lord spoke to me through others.
Sometimes when you have dreams, you think of them as belonging to the approaching future. Ireland is where God hinted that these dreams are on a sooner-rather-than-later timeline.
I am confident in God because I know Him better now, I know I can trust Him, I know He loves me and has planned for me, that He wants to see the desires of my heart fulfilled – because He’s the one who put them there! And so I’ll tell you that I have that giddy excitement that comes before a first date, an anticipation of dreams soon to come true!
A quick tale…
Three days ago, my friend told me that I have pursued a specific dream of mine with an open-minded and patient approach which really, to be succinct was just not a perfect fit.
Two nights ago I was riding European shot-gun with Hutch, a father-figure that took us Racers in (and fed us and drove us to see all the beautiful places) while we lived in Ireland. Conversations with Hutch are what I would call “life-giving”, or encouraging, where impossible dreams changed from stagnant thoughts to a plan for the very possible, where the complicated was made clear.
Hutch mentioned that God knows and loves us down to exact details.
The previous afternoon, I experience a very detailed interaction that provided HOPE for that specific dream of mine.
Then the next day, I had another interaction that confirmed that God is not a God of chance but of purposeful placement of people.
So here’s to dreams, the awareness of them in our subconscious and our conscious, and here’s to actually believing that God is talkative and that God is good.
May we become more aware…
