I am a dreamer, a guy who often times will have really stupid off the cuff type of dreams. The kind of dreams that when you are actually dreaming, you know that you are dreaming. So for someone like me to say that God has spoken to me through my dreams someone might say that it was just simply that, a dream. These weren't just dreams, they were reality for me at the time.
Dream 1)
This dream was really not something that I thought would affect me. You see, for some reason I actually forgot about this dream until last night in church. I'm still trying to figure that one out. Why a dream this significant would hit me over a year later, but as it stands I remember it as clear as day now. I was standing somewhere where the sun had set and the backdrop of the sunset was so beautiful. Every color you can think of! So as I was being enamored with this beauty I was able to focus on a man standing about a hundred yards away from me. Suddenly I realized that all of the beauty from what I originally thought was the sun was really radiating from this man. I focused more on him and realized that it was Jesus, only He was walking away from me. As if He knew when I finally realized that it was Him was when He turned to me waving His arms said " Come To Me". Then He turned and started walking away again. I remember now waking up feeling like I just saw Jesus. It seemed as though time stood still and Holy Crap! I just saw Jesus!
Some time passed as I obviously seemed to forget that I saw Jesus. It began to fade as the importance of "my life" began to creep back into the days and weeks that passed. Now that I look back on it it seems almost unfathomable that I could have been that dead to Him, but I was.
Dream 2)
This one is and has been very difficult to talk about until now. Not because of anything but the sheer beauty in it, not that the first one wasn't beautiful. I was actually sleeping in my dream and was awakened by a strange commotion in the family room. The light was on as well so I thought something was wrong. So I grabbed my gun, chambered a round and started to proceed down the hall. When I was able to see what the commotion was I could have died then and there. In my family room were two large men and my sweet Lillian with a gun to her head. I instantly dropped my gun, and began to plead with them to let her go. I remember not being able to figure out why they were there in the first place. Robbery maybe and Lilly woke up, I don't know. Anyway, I offered to leave Lilly and the rest of my family so they could take anything they wanted. I tried to reason with them. Then the man with the gun glanced at the picture of Jesus that we have on the wall. He looked back at me as if he had just realized that we were "Christians" and said to me, " I will give back your daughter to you alive and we will leave here if you tell me that He is not your Savior". I want you to denounce that man as God is what he asked me to do.
I began weeping! I only could do one thing. I started to explain to my daughter that I could not do that. I tried to comfort her in her last moments of life. She was crying but in a way that I knew she understood what was about to happen. As time passed so slowly we talked about how in only moments she will be sitting with Jesus and laughing joyfully and soon I will be with her as I could have only assumed. But, as I began to pray for her in a way that only God could have inspired in me, I woke up. In my bed I was physically crying. Crying for my daughter that I still believed was not with me anymore. My pillow was wet with tears of pain that I have never felt in my entire life even to this day. It was minutes before I finally realized that I still had my Lilly-billy. I could not for the life of me understand what just happened to me. It was so terrible that I absolutely felt no happiness for at least the time it took for God to clarify the dream to me.
At first I thought that it was a dream that proved to Christ how faithful I would be to him, nope! Then I thought it was a dream to show that maybe I needed to step up my efforts for Him, NOPE! God showed me that night, I think beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I already had Him in my heart, and He was showing me how He already had the highest importance in my life and, I had to know that not Him. It was me that couldn't grasp where my heart had been this entire time. My whole life He had already dwelt in my heart and changed it but I could not grasp that He had already done that for me. It wasn't that I had to change my heart, it was done for me. He let me know that night that I was ready to begin His work. He let me know that night that I was already able to do His work. He let me know that night that it was time for me to listen to the Holy Spirit and obey. I was Abraham and Lilly was Isaac and I was willing to sacrifice my daughter to glorify God. God showed me that night that he was going to begin a blessing through me that is now beginning to show His mighty power.
So I begin reading, and reading, and reading, and reading. Every single book that I read connects with the next and the next and the next. The scripture connects with a book that connects with a message from Phil that connects with a message from Billy Graham and so on and so on and so on. RIDICULOUS! It got so bad ( or rather amazing) that I would turn on a random speaker from a christian t v station and I would tell Melissa that I bet this connects with that. So I began to read and listen and listen and listen. It is an amazing thing when you begin to hear Gods voice. Many times I would feel Him move me. Many times I could hear His Spirit speak to me and I would listen and I would obey. The more I would listen the more I would hear, the more I would obey the more things He would tell me. CRAZY!
So six months ago or so I started to get these thoughts. I would call them daydreams but I would still be doing whatever it was that I was doing. I would find myself preparing my dads eulogy. I would maybe be actually giving my dads eulogy. No matter what it was it had to do with my dads funeral. As They happened I would try to just push them out as bad thoughts or stupid random events. They didn't seem very crucial to me at the time. Out of nowhere one day though I felt the Holy Spirit tell me that I was supposed to start a small group with my brothers and especially my dad. It seemed strange but as the feeling grew I realized that my family never talked about the very thing that was the most important, our faith. I asked Melissa what she thought and she said it sounded kinda fun.
My dad said NO! Well not actually no but he was not sure that he wanted to. He would think about it. I went to my mom to ask her what she thought and she very wisely said, " pray for him, all you can do is pray for him". So for three weeks I prayed for my dad and my brother and my brother in law. So I confidently went back to my dad and he said yes. I wasn't sure why I felt such an urgency for my dad especially because I still had not connected all the daydreams to this yet. They were still weird random thoughts to me. They quickly became more than random.
After I felt Africa calling me I was really feeling this complete desire to grow. More importantly the desire to follow Christ in everything I would do. It was as if He and I were completely connected, as I believe we were created to be. Well I was experiencing it for the first time. Shortly before my trip I felt a little more fear for my dad. A few more daydreams, which I now believe was the Holy Spirit preparing me for this period in my life. As I was really gearing up to leave and I went to my parents to say goodbye, I felt an emotion with my dad that I have never felt before. My dad was always a lips kisser with our family and I don't know if I was insecure or if it just became a habit but I always went for the cheek. Well that night before I went to Africa I kissed my dad on the lips for the first time in ten years maybe. I don't know why either. I had brief thoughts that I may not see him again.
To head home after the most life changing experience of my young life you can imagine how excited I was to come home. I asked Melissa how my folks were, and she thought that my dad was doing better. I was able to have one more small group with him. Discussion question: If you were to die tomorrow, what would you be thankful for and what would you regret? That was what we discussed per our Crazy Love Study Guide.
My dad said that he was so thankful that he was learning how to follow Christ and not just say it. He was thankful that the small group was changing his heart. He was thankful for a lot. He had no regrets! None. I think that my dad was in the best spot spiritually that he had ever been. God was and had prepared his heart and spirit for his death on March 30th. The most fascinating part of it all was that on my way up north the day before, I had had the strongest Holy Spirit prompting yet, another eulogy for my dads funeral. Still could not connect the dots because I was not supposed to. And on the day of, I believe at the exact time of my dad's death I read a passage from the Bonhoeffer biography that I was reading, completely magnifying how beautiful Christ' defeat over death truly was. I read it at least five times and could not understand why it meant so much to me.
Through this experience, I found out that from one conversation I had with someone I know, about a book I was reading on my front porch after randomly coming home from work early one day, I unknowingly stopped him from doing the same thing that my dad did. I was home early and didn't know why. I was reading on my porch swing and didn't know why. He came to my house in the middle of the day and I didn't know why. We talked about Christ in my life and what He meant to me and I didn't know why. It was when I called him to tell him about my dad's death that he told me why. God had a new plan for him and it wasn't death that day for him. If God had wanted anyone to intercede for my dad than surely it would have happened.
Our days our numbered in the book of life from before we are born. God new of this day long ago and because he knew of it He also knew how to fulfill it the way that He saw fit. I believe that it is through extreme pain and questions that seeds begin to sprout up. I believe that many who were at the funeral felt the hand of God work in that building. I believe that it was through this event of pain and sorrow that the magnificence of God is being fulfilled. I believe that it gives more reason than ever to depend upon His redemption and His glory. If someone cannot see God's hand in this event well than they just don't have their eyes open. I don't claim to be righteous, I don't claim to be Christlike, but what I do claim and will forever claim is that I choose to trust Him. No matter what the cost to me. I know in my heart that He has started a fire in me that cannot be suppressed, He has moved me as I had asked Him to shortly after the second dream. I have for the first time in my life, experienced a movement of God!
