Listen While You Sleep

From 3/15/2008

We often speak of God or the supernatural but only with half-belief. We read Bible stories about dream interpretation and God sending messages to people in dreams, but do we really believe that stuff? I do. I believe that with the lives we lead today the still, small voice God often speaks in gets drowned out by the dissonance of our many thoughts. We are so busy yelling at life to hurry up and go in our direction that we don’t stop to ask God for directions, except to get out of our own mess - the mess we would not be in, mind you, had we sought His guidance in the first place AND did what He said to do (mmm hmmm - you know I’m right). But instead we say, "Ok. You’re right, God. But just let me do it this way"...and the rest is history...sigh. On the highway of life my advice is to read the "map" before you even start your car. And if you decide to keep driving, you’ll see me pulled over, because I am not going one more mile until I am sure of my direction. The destination doesn’t matter. I just want to be on the right road.

I dream almost every night, I think. Sometimes they are just images, like a snapshot; a picture. And sometimes they are rolling films of garbled nonsene. Sometimes I have the same dream over and over again, or the same type of dream. Sometimes I wake up shaken and scared, sometimes enlightened, but always somehow changed by the experience I had in my sleep. Lately I’ve been dreaming of being threatened and attacked, but not by people, by animals, and in places where you wouldn’t expect, like in the middle of a city. And in the midst of the attack I have to protect someone else. I had another dream like that last night. I won’t give the details of it, but the attack took place at my father’s house and the animal managed to injure me but not kill me.

I dialed my father’s number as soon as I woke up but he wasn’t home. I always feel there is a message in a dream, not only for me, but for the people I saw in the dream, so I wanted to tell him about it. At first I was disturbed by the whole thing (it was very graphic) but the voice on the other end of the line told me to look at the events of my dreams - in the time of panic and fear I was still untouched, and though the animal did manage to hurt me in the end it didn’t kill me...and that it was because I was in my FATHER’s house. Ohhh I can’t express the tingles in my spirit because through the voice on the other end of the phone God was telling me, "Don’t worry. I got you". We say it, but sometimes we need that reassurance that He’s really right here...watching and protecting.

I won’t tell the devil to bring it on, but that disturbance I’ve been feeling recently...that ominous foreshadowing.....I know something is going down on a level that is far beyond me. Words of spiritual things are folly for them who don’t believe, I and know someone is going to read this and think I am nuts, but I believe that God is trying to tell me something...and last night in the midst of my slumber I was quiet enough to hear it. Today in my awakening I am grounded enough to heed, and faithful enough to know that:
1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!"
3 For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.
5 You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day;
6 Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.
7 A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, But it shall not approach you.
8 You will only look on with your eyes and see the recompense of the wicked.
9 For you have made the LORD, my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place.
10 No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent.
11 For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.
12 They will bear you up in their hands, that you do not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down.
14 "Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name.
15 "He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.
16 "With a long life I will satisfy him And let him see My salvation."

(Psalm 91) ...Selah