Last night I had very vivid dreams. There was very rocky ground, rubble and shale and I knew that the ground, if I stepped on it would move all around me. As I looked at the ground and gripped the hands of my children, I said to them that it would be alright if they had faith. They nodded and so we stepped forward, expecting our feet to slip and preparing ourselves for a fall but as we stepped our bodies elevated just a little, a few feet and we were hovering/flying just above the ground. It's the faith keeping us up I told the children so just keep believing and they nodded and we continued on like this over ground that gave way to what might habe been sea beneath and over rubble-land where houses lay in piles. We were in a warm country. Other people were there and afraid and slipping all around us on now what was very chalky coloured rubble, interspersed with bigger stones and fissures all falling away into something I couldn't quite make out below and I was shouting at them - it's just faith, it's not me, I don't do it, it's just faith that keeps us up, you can do it too, have faith ...and people from everywhere began to travel with us, and we were all just hovering and yet this was quite normal and yet also very wonderful...and then the scene changed and I was in a city-scape, some kind of outside bar and there was loud music and people there, they were scruffy and hung-over and there was a menacing feeling about the place, desperate and depressing. There was a girl there and she had a baby to care for but she was so young and so desperate and alone and her dark hair was scraped back and her eyes were hollow and her face was tear-stained. She wore a blue denim jacket. I couldn't get near her. I was trying to get to her but there were too many people in the way. I was trying to talk to her but the music was too loud and then suddenly I was beside her and the music was gone and she was reaching up to reach a bottle from a shelf and time seemed to freeze. I reached out with both my hands and held them gently aloft, one at each side of her. I didn't touch her and I prayed and prayed and prayed for her. And time was still frozen with her reaching up and I became aware that everything in the bar had frozen in time and so no-one was aware of what I was doing and I had no need to be self-conscious. I was the only person moving, speaking in prayer, and then I sensed she was receiving the spirit of God, something was changing and I started to worry that she would become unfrozen and turn around and ask me to stop praying but she didn't and then I put my arms down and as I did time became unstuck and I looked at the girl and she looked at me and there was a change there and I was about to speak to her but I woke up.
These dreams have stayed with me all day today. We had cousins Dan and Anna visiting and lots of interesting conversations over lunch and a walk. On the way back from our pub lunch, we walked through the field near our house and the ground was so treacherously muddy and boggy and just oozing and marked by the footprints of wellington boots and dog paws and I slipped and fell, one hand landing in the thick mud. I wished that I could have done what I could do in my dream and as we navigated our way down thin, muddy tracks and steep mud-covered steps, I held tightly onto Franny's hand and said it's okay, we'll be fine... So weird.
4 comments:
Rachel, have you ever had Christian interpretation of your dreams? I have, and have had some teaching on this, for example this from Mark Virkler. The basic principle seems to be that our dreams are God speaking to us, in prophetic symbolism. I'm sure that is true of your dream, but I wouldn't venture to offer an interpretation.
Thank you Peter - your words and the link, confirm for me what I am indeed inclined to think - that God certainly communicates with us through our dreams and it is biblical to think this way.
Perhaps though, unfortunately we are also sometimes the victim of a kind of spiritual attack in our dreams too. I remember once being in conversation with someone resistant to the message at the heart of Christianity. This person was staying in my home. They had been a passionate Christian but were falling away. I felt like I was doing the job of an apologist but I was doing a very bad job because I listened to myself compromising on some of the orthodox truths and trying hard to see things from their more pluralistic point of view because I didn't want to offend or disrupt too much the ideology within which I came to understand they were living comfortably. At the same time I wanted so much for them to understand how much they are loved by Jesus and he is the way to the Father. That night I had the most horrific nightmare and to this day I do not know whether I dreamed it or it was some other phenomenon. I am still so absolutely sure (although this might be a lie, I'm being told) that I had poured myself a glass of water before I went to sleep and I had left it on the chest of drawers. Anyway, in my dream, Jesus was on the cross but he was burning and the devil was showing me this and laughing and I was terrified. After he had shown me this he said that he was going to take my living water away and then there was a black shape in my bedroom and it was taking the glass of water from the top of the chest of drawers and I was screaming at it to not take away my water. I was obviously still dreaming but it was so vivid I felt as though I was awake. When I woke up I was shaking and crying and wondering where my glass of water was and it was gone. I ended up thinking it must be that I had never actually brought a glass of water up with me but it took ages for me to work out that this was so. This dream was definitely not from God. I think it was spiritual attack because the devil had got just a bit of an advance on me as I had been speaking with my pluralistic friend, compromising some of my orthodox opinions of the faith. I take a lot of notice of my dreams - they reveal a huge amount and I am careful to pray for God to be with me as I rest re compline etc.
Thanks, Rachel. Yes, I understand that dreams can also be spiritual attacks, evil spirits communicating with us. And I'm sure some dreams, for example those of a sexual nature, come from our own minds and spirits. So we need discernment, not to take all dreams as positive messages from God, and to test them against Scripture and with others before acting on them. But I think it is usually clear, at least with experience, which dreams are from God and which are not. I would suggest that the dream in your post is from God, but you need to decide that for yourself.
Yes, I think you're right Peter, I am very much hoping it proves to be prophetic - the flying with faith and prayer ministry dream. I'm off to a good start - I had a very good meeting with my vocations officer today who is going to put me in touch with a DDO, so this feels very exciting.
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