I have a dream to tell you about!

I love how dreams can say so many things at once.

I could pull on a number of threads from the one I will tell you about today. I think it needs to be divided into two separate posts.

Just a quick reminder, it is ever so important to be a student of the bible in order to lay a foundation by which all revelation must be judged. I can believe in nothing that contradicts the words or values or paradigm found there.

I have found what the bible says about dreams to be very applicable to how God uses them in my life.

Job 33:14 Indeed God speaks once, Or twice, yet no one notices it. 15 In a dream, a vision of the night, When deep sleep falls on people, While they slumber in their beds, 16 Then He opens the ears of people, And horrifies them with warnings, 17 So that He may turn a person away from bad conduct, And keep a man from pride; 18 He keeps his soul back from the pit, And his life from perishing by the spear.

Dreams that warn are not only dreams that prophesy cataclysmic future events warning us not to get on a particular plane. “He opens their ears in the night.” Quite often, I find that God reveals things about heart issues that are difficult to hear when my mind’s security guard is awake and defending my ego.

A good way to earmark any kind of revelation like dreams and visions is to discern if it points me to Jesus, acting like Him, or to having His heart .

Pride, fear, jealousy all lead to the bad conduct mentioned in the Job scripture. And they are difficult to discern in ourselves and dreams is one of the ways God can point these out if we can listen.

Psalm 17: 3 You have tried my heart; You have visited me by night; You have tested me and You find nothing; I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress.

Bearing all that in mind, here is the dream.

Today’s theme will be about how jealousy, accusations, and misunderstood motives can prevent us from hearing God, and how we need to walk in humility in our gifts.

Next week we will talk about the second section of the dream which highlights discernment and our need to be able to receive correction.

The setting of the dream is that I was with a group of people at a training retreat.

At this retreat I became accused of two things.

A woman watched as her fiancée took me aside to speak to me.

She got up and yelled at me and accused me of wanting to steal her fiancée.

Then a man stood up and pointed at me and said, “You don’t really love us.”

I calmly replied, “Yes, I do, I love you,”

The Groom then gave me a gift.

But because of the accusations against me, I threw it to the floor saying “Let me make this clear, I don’t want this!”

It shattered. And among the broken shards of colored glass, there lay a scroll.

Someone shouted, “Aha! He sent you a love letter! READ IT out loud! We want to know what it says!”

I looked at Him, my eyes sought His permission and he nodded yes.

So, I opened the scroll and it was a series of pictures with rhyming captions like a cartoon.

I looked at him and I saw in His eyes the confirmation of what I knew in my heart.

He had engineered this whole thing to bring out this message to his girlfriend and He nodded.

So I opened the scroll and saw a series of rhyming couplets with accompanying cartoon drawings.

It was a moving narrative; He waxed poetic in song about His admiration of each of her attributes.

It was not unlike, how do I love thee, let me count the ways.

Some were tender, others funny.

With each phrase of praise, the people became quieter until there was a special hush.

The love of God for His bride was palpable in the room.

Then the speaker invited everyone outside to reveal what the jealous woman who had accused me of seeking her groom’s affection had been concealing in the woods.

Outside there were two litters of different animals. A white bundle and in another spot a bundle of black newborns.

They were so tiny it was hard to distinguish what kind of animals they were.

I picked one of the sleeping newborns from the little huddle of black pets. Someone said they are goats and I said no, they are sheep.

I then went to the other litter which were white, and they were especially dear to the woman who said, “they are kittens.”

The speaker walked over as well and picked one up and slid its fur upward with his hand.

The moment he did, he exposed what was underneath. When he set the creature down, it went straight to the bundle of lambs, grabbed one, and began dragging it away to attack it.

Its disguise had been lifted, and its true nature was revealed.

But the woman said they were so cute and tiny how much harm could they really do.

She still wanted to keep them.

After we returned inside, another man and I came together and prayed and prophesied over her, asking God to help her make the decision to release the “kittens.”

End of dream.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I am going to leave the second section about discernment for next week.

The first section reveals a jealousy that can drown out the Bridegroom’s voice before we realize it.

And there were accusations about my motives and I was judged falsely.

It is easy to accuse others of wrong motives, especially if we think they are getting the attention we believe we deserve.

But the groom was actually spending time with me in order to prepare me to deliver His message of love and praise to His bride.

And she thought I was flirting with Him and stealing Him away from her!

Sometimes we become so focused on who God is speaking through we completely miss what He is saying.

Many of us assume that if God is speaking to someone else, blessing someone else, using someone else, or giving revelation to someone else, somehow there is less of Him available for us.

The irony is that the woman in the dream ached for her fiancé’s affection. Yet when he began expressing that affection, she was so focused on the messenger that she nearly missed it.

We can become suspicious of the messenger instead of listening for the message.

How often do we do the same? God speaks through a friend, a preacher, a prophet, a spouse, or even a stranger, and instead of receiving the gift, we reject it.

John the Baptist described himself as the friend of the Bridegroom who rejoices not in drawing attention to himself but in hearing the Bridegroom’s voice. I love that this theme runs behind this scenario in the dream. John 3: 28, 29

The dream is a picture of prophetic ministry.

And it was clear that it was the Bridegroom’s intention all along that the gift be broken open.

We are not meant to hold our gifts tightly like trophies that prove God’s approval.

The gift is simply the vessel through which the Bridegroom’s love is revealed.

People can view your proximity to the Lord as competition or threat. Its sad commentary but especially in Charismatic and prophetic circles we can jostle for the mic.

Jealousy distorts, but humility refuses to retaliate.

So, the question is not whether God is speaking, but whether we are humble enough to receive His voice when it comes through someone else.

Maybe even someone we are ready to dismiss as unworthy.

Prophetic ministry can be public, sacrificial, and at times humiliating.

Yet much of its most important work happens in private through prayer and intercession.

In prayer it is as if we sing a song about the Bridegroom’s affection over His bride. Before it is ever spoken publicly.

One way or another, I believe all of us have a sound that our lives make in the world around us.

What kind of sound do other people hear when we speak? What are we amplifying?

Is it a sound like the gongs and cymbals mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13?

If we do not love, we sound brash, irritating, striving, and clamoring.

The dream reminded me every prophetic act or word should carry the sound of the love of the Bridegroom. And we are not all meant to sound the same!

If your life were a song, what would you sound like?

Are you an upbeat dance tune?

A love ballad?

Are you a trumpet sounding battle cry for change? I love that prophetic sound in the Body!

A reveille that rouses, “wake up!” a clear call and invitation to repent.

Heard by itself it can seem intense, but brings a much needed voice within our communities of faith!

The beauty of an orchestra is the variation of the instruments creating something together.

As we seek Him and say yes to His correction, He teaches us to cherish the other instruments He’s called us to play alongside.

The layered richness and layers of harmony in Handel’s Messiah comes to mind.

If your life were a song, what would it sound like to those around you? What are you amplifying?

The Bridegroom is still writing love letters to His bride. That is such good news!

The prophetic ministry in the dream was not to draw people to myself but to clearly point to the love of our Lord. And pointing out the woman’s affection for what was destructive was to pray for her to desire the freedom only God can give.

It is my prayer that we never stumble over the messenger He sends and fail to hear the song.

Next week I will talk about the second section of the dream. Discernment of the true nature of a thing even when it is small, and what is below the surface.

Below is a love song I used to listen to ‘way back when.’

Sometimes we can hear the Lord even in a simple strain. I love His trumpet, I love His whisper.

All the love, my friends.