I had a nasty dream last night in which I was down by the ocean and a raging storm was underway. I had walked out on a very slippery dock with a wooden bench in the middle but no guard rails. The wind was howling and fifteen foot waves were lifting the little dock up and down and I was slipping and sliding as I tried to keep my footing in order to keep from being swept into the sea. Huge ocean going sharks including giant grays, bulls, tigers, and lemons had completely surrounded the little dock and I could catch glimpses of them as they came to the surface and slowly circled the little dock as though in anticipation of that impending slip and slide into the ocean.
In my deep sea fishing days I had often chummed these sharks up with bloody carcasses and it was amazing to see them come to the blood and go into a feeding frenzy. They would bite into the big carcasses tied to the boat and shake them back and forth like my little dog Coopie shakes his toys. They would tear off a piece of carcass with one crunch of their powerful teeth laden mouths and splash water on us as they swept their big tails to go beneath the surface and gorge.
Gulp! One slipup and I would become a shark snack that would savagely be torn apart, ravaged, and consumed in mere seconds.
I woke up and the dream had been so disturbing that I just went ahead and got up, because I didn’t want to go back to sleep and keep dreaming it.
So was this dream caused by something natural like a particular unsettling meal that I’d eaten? Maybe it came from a recent bad experience? Was it something I saw that triggered it? Was it an attack from satan designed to interrupt what precious little sleep I get? Or was it a prophetic warning from God?
Hmmm . . . I didn’t eat anything unusual; I haven’t had a recent experience that was in any way reminiscent of what I dreamed; I’ve seen nothing that reminded me of sharks or the ocean lately; I can find no evidence in the Bible that satan causes dreams; however I do find plenty of evidence that God uses dreams prophetically, to warn us, and tell us to take action. In fact we are told in the Bible that in the latter days that old men will dream dreams sent by God.
Sigh . . . I guess I qualify as being old.
Lest you think this is just charismatic hogwash, keep in mind that dreams have played a big role in the lives of God’s servants throughout the Bible. God spoke to Abimelech warning him not to touch Abraham’s wife, there was Jacob’s ladder in Genesis, Joseph’s dream that his brothers would serve him, as well as his dream about Pharaoh that led to his becoming the second most powerful man in Egypt. Also the Lord or His angel appeared to others in the Bible, including Gideon, Solomon, Nebuchadnezzar, Mary, Joseph (Mary’s fiancé), and Pilate’s wife. There are more, but you get the point.
I conclude that God is warning me that I better walk carefully lest I be torn apart. If I need reinforcement I need look no further than my last dream a few weeks ago whereby I saw a huge poisonous snake’s head suddenly appear by my nightstand adjacent to my bed and look at me. Without warning and before I could even think about my situation, it rapidly came over the nightstand and into the bed and crawled underneath my side. Though it didn’t bite me, it was nonetheless quite disturbing.
Also my friend Pastor Daniel from Ghana Africa (who along with his church prays for me daily) recently sent me a warning that said: “Prayerfully watch the people around you. They can be the air that you breathe to either enhance or abort your convictions. – (Revealed by the Spirit in prayer)”.
Yikes I’m looking at the people around me and wondering who might be a friend and who might be my foe.
As I mulled this over I looked at the rest of the text message he sent and it reads in part: “Have intensified our prayer for you since then. Amazing revelation! Like color blue tattoo writings on your right hand and the long blue and white shirt you wore folded to elbow level showed these words: ‘Am the book of Joel’. You stood JUST smiling to a huge crowd at an ocean side scenery sensed to be the Atlantic. Suddenly smoke began to come out of many of them and their faces lightened. – Pastor Daniel
Hmmm . . . I feel this means that people were hearing the word of God and many of them were surrendering their lives to Jesus Christ and He was cleansing them of their sins. The prophecy of which I am most familiar in Joel is as follows: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams and your young men will see visions. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on servants – men and women alike. And I will cause wonders in the heavens and on the earth – blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and terrible day of the Lord arrives. But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved…
Amazing huh? And you thought it was just the pizza . . . Pastor Daniel also sent me this in the last couple of days. I find it very encouraging:
“This is our confidence that when we pray in faith and wait in patience, our expectation shall not be cutoff”.
I’m not worried about those shark “friends” that surround me, or the powerful waves that threaten to wash me into the raging sea, or some slime ball snake. As for me I intend to follow Jesus and try my utmost to preach the Gospel to anyone and everyone who will receive it for as long as He allows me a breath.
I pray for faith, patience and humility in front of our awesome God as I prepare to see God act!
Now that’s what I’m talking about . . .
Psalm 37:7
Be still in the presence of the LORD, and wait patiently for him to act. Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.
November 26, 2014 – Click here to listen