What I Learned from My Dream–And it Could Be Your Lesson, Too
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It took awhile for me to realize I’ll never be one of those people with normal dreams. Normal people either can’t recall their dreams, or they are mildly entertaining.
Mine are full length movies in HD where I often receive instruction during the dream to apply to my non-dreaming life. They are so vivid and intense I often wake more tired in some ways as when I went to bed.
I’m in an active dreaming season, and it coincides with an intense praying time. 2012 has been wrought with the unexpected, and full of conflict. There is something in me that feels it’s time to take action. Do something. Make a plan and execute it.
And in song, sermon, book, devotions, conversation and dream the answer is the same–be still and know He is God. Trust Him. But doing nothing, or at least what looks like nothing to me, is the main point time and time again. And I’m struggling because it goes against everything I want to do.
Last night I dreamed that I was involved in a mass shooting. I watched a deliberate assassin meticulously aim and take fatal shots at everyone around me. I wanted to run. Oh, how I wanted to run. I wanted to stop “her.” The shooting intensified. I could feel the bullets and I knew everyone else was dead and now the target was me.
Again, my instinct was to run. Escape. Do something, anything.
But I remained still, and I prayed. I could hear myself praying words I didn’t even understand, but my prayers were unceasing. As the bullets increased, even piercing a hat I was wearing (which tips you off it was a dream because I am not a hat wearer, but the praying part of me believes the hat represents a Godly covering over my life) my prayers were bolder, but I was so still it angered the part of me that was observing the dream.
Suddenly, the bullets stopped. The assassin was apprehended and I stood, grief stricken at the carnage. I felt a keen sense of survivor guilt. The killer, bound by handcuffs, called out to me.
“The only reason you’re alive is because you stood still. Everyone else moved, ran, and was active, so erratic and without structure they were the easiest targets. I couldn’t get you because you were unmoving.”
Although the dream continued with me grief stricken by the loss surrounding me and people pointing me out as the only survivor, there was that awake part of me that got it. The dream was strategy. Of all the things I want to do right now, the wisest thing for me to do is to sit still. Pray. Trust. And that will apprehend the enemy of my soul.
I don’t know your circumstances but justice is such an issue and struggle for me. I keep going back to the Lord not understanding my broken wrist. Before I was upset not understanding why it didn’t heal right and why I needed surgery after so long. Currently my cry is not comprehending the financial strain. Because of an insurance issue years ago over medical bills (that God supernaturally provided thousands of dollars for that we didn’t have) I am emotionally paralyzed by medical bills. They are pouring in. And I don’t get it.
I don’t get why good people have been taken out in their prime and absolute destruction surrounds. I’m seeing it time and time again this year, and just like my dreams, I want to stand up, shake my fists and say this isn’t fair. But the bullets are coming closer and the more I want to move, the more God says stay. Don’t go on my own. Don’t get a plan of my own. Any movement on my part only makes me a fatal target.
If that’s your temptation, know I’m there too. So let’s commit to be still in our surroundings. Pray without stopping. Trust God, even when everyone around you seems to have a plan that appears active compared to your doing what looks like nothing. This is the strategy God has for you, and obeying won’t just save your life, it will arrest your enemy.
Glory to His name.
