Dreams: God's Carrier Pigeon - Part 1

First, let me tell you a few stories.  Then let me explain a few things.  Then let me say, "goodnight."

When I was just a little kid growing up in rural Arkansas, I had a reoccurring nightmare in which I would find myself (usually how dreams begin) in the middle of a swamp on a cement pad.  Water Moccasins were coming out of the water onto the concrete and biting my ankles and legs.  I would wake up in a panic and a cold sweat.  You tend to block out trauma and I had no recollection of that dream until a few yeas back when I had the dream again.  I was just starting out in my current position as Youth Director at The Methodist Temple.  The stress was high, the expectations were higher.  I was just a Dave from Arkansas.  How could I live up to what this job required.  I felt very inadequate.  i felt like a boy in a man's world and that I did not belong.  I went to bed one night just a few weeks after getting the job and had this same dream.  However there were two very different things about this second installment.  In the dream, I was in the same swamp, on the same cement pad, and surrounded by the same snakes.  But what was different is that I was wearing some very large hiking boots and as the snakes were coming toward me, I was stomping on their heads and kicking the snakes back into the water.  I was still a little boy in the dream, but I had man boots on and the snakes were not winning this time.  I woke up and immediately I heard a voice in my head speak very clearly to me.  "David, men are not afraid of snakes."

Now we could chalk that up to an overactive imagination or pizza (and I may well have had a slice before bed, I honestly don't remember) but in all sincerity, I don't believe in coincidence anymore.  I was struggling with that issue and I fully believe that the God who loves me perfectly sent me a message. The message:

Don't be afraid, you are fully equipped for what I have called you to.  Not only that, the enemy will attack, but you are going to crush his head because you are standing on "The Rock, Jesus".  Your foundation is firm and though you are still My child, you are a man.

Getting that message from the dream did take some time and prayer, but I am convinced of this interpretation.

I first got interested in dreams when I read some things in the Bible about God talking to people that way.  I was just learning about the person of the Holy Spirit and how He moved in the lives of believers and I had simply prayed this prayer;

"Father, I want to learn more about the Holy Spirit.  I want to experience His presence in my life.  I am asking for dreams and visions specifically and that you would give me the gift of prophecy."

I read 1 Corinthians 14 and Acts 2 and put two and two together.  It seemed to me that this stuff was for me and I was supposed to ask for it.

That very night, my wife woke me up because she had just had a really vivid dream and she knew it was from God.  Honestly, this frustrated me a great deal.  I was the one who wanted it and asked for it.  She did not want it, nor did she ask for it.  Instantly, that familiar voice of the Savior spoke to me and said, "What's the difference?"  My mind heard that phrase but understood His words in a deeper way.  What my heart heard was, "You two are one and that is not just poetry, that is reality.  I answered your prayer perfectly by giving you a dream that was from me."

As my wife began to tell me the dream, my mind was understanding the imagery in the same deep manner as I had His voice.  I had to keep myself from interrupting her as I was understanding what her dream meant.  This went on for quite some time and there were a few occasions in which I woke up from my sleep and the Lord would start speaking very clearly to me about something and then moments later Rachel would wake up having had a dream about the same thing.  He was speaking to us simultaneously with two very different methods about the same thing.

I began to resign myself to the fact that God was not going to actually speak to me personally though dreams and visions, but that I was going to be one of these interpreter types and could hear His voice in my heart and understand Him.  Then another good friend of mine started having multiple dreams in the night and writing them down.  She had not asked for them and did not even know that God would do such things but she recognized them as being from Him without any help.  She started bringing them to me and again, it was as if a download started in my mind whenever she would start talking about the dream.  Then the floodgates opened and tons of friends and acquaintances and even one lady from France started sending me their dreams.  It was all very fun, but the newness wore off and I wondered why God could not just tell us these things without all the cloak & dagger stuff.

Then I started having dreams myself.

I still don't dream quite as often as I'd like to, but much more than before.  Once I started having my own dreams, I began to understand why God would want to use these to send us messages.  Dreams are multidimensional messages that convey deep truths that we could not fully receive or understand if they came in a different way.  Like a movie or a song, you get some truth from it the first time you watch or hear it, but the more you revisit it, you start to see deeper truths that were meant to be conveyed.  God can send several deep messages all at once that have multiple applications for different people.  He can even speak to your heart without you even knowing it.  I now have "remembered" dreams that I was totally unaware of before and that continually blows my mind.

To illustrate what I mean by the depth of imagery that God can put in a dream, I titled this post and put a picture in that conveyed the meaning in a deeper way.  The picture and the title are meant to help you remember what the post was about.  If all you got was the text, then you might not receive it quite as well or understand the message even.  Have you noticed that I put pictures in almost all of my posts?  Now you know why.

In a dream, God can have a specific person say something to you.  The person's personality, job, position in your family or even the fact that they are different looking than normal can be a message that is sent at the same time as what they are saying.  Sometimes this message can be a deeper understanding or a key to unlocking what was spoken.  Along with that, the clothes they are wearing the color of the flower on the table next to them or even the kind of car that drives by can all be part of this mufti-faceted message from God.  Even the emotions you are feeling at the time can be part of that message.

When you stop to think about it, how could one method of communication be sufficient for a God as big and powerful as ours?  There is so much that He is imparting to us when He speaks, that dreams and visions are basically a no-brainer.  (Visions are pretty much the same as a dream, just more pointed and sudden and while you are awake).

Be aware that not "every" dream is a message from God.  The Devil loves to fake the things God does.  We also have a subconscious mind that is very active.  It takes intimacy with Jesus to be able to discern the difference.  There are no hard and fast rules as Jesus is a living and real person.  I like to say that the only rule when it comes to Jesus is, "LOVE."  Yet even this is something that we need to learn to recognize.  Also, it is very important to note that all doctrine is established by Scripture (The Holy Bible) and the Holy Spirit will never give you a dream that is not bathed in the truth of the Word.

I encourage you to write your dreams down for a couple different reasons.  First, they come in invisible ink to our minds and can fade away with the sun just like fog does.  I try to write them down as soon as I can.  there are times when i have had to go and pray and ask God to remind me of the dream and He has.  The second reason is that it can take a long time for a dream to fully be understood.  And if it is prophetic in nature in regards to your future, it may take years to fulfill.  IT is good to be able to revisit those dreams and remember them and even see that you may have already come to an understanding about something that you did not previously have.  Case in point, I had a pretty good understanding of my swamp dream for several years, but only while writing this post did I come to realize what the cement pad represented and that was something God has been teaching me over the past year.  If you have been reading my previous posts, you can see that theme.  It seems he has been teaching me about His firm foundation a lot longer than just this past year!  How good is He?!

In the next post, I am going to try and shed some more light on the issue of dreams, visions and other things God uses to communicate with His children.  I fully expect there to be a few questions or comments about this.  I welcome them.  I am no expert, but I know One who is.

Goodnight,

David Warren

Strong Divine Weapons: COURAGE

COURAGE is the theme for our youth ministry at Temple this school year.  We are focusing on this word for our upcoming fall retreat.  We are talking about it during our lessons.  You may at first wonder how courage is one of our divine weapons for tearing down enemy strongholds in our lives.  Let me explain.

I learned from my wife that there is one command from God that is given more often than any other in the Bible.  Almost every single time an angel shows up in scripture, this command is given.  The command is, "Do not be afraid."  Now obviously this command is given by angels because, quite frankly, they are frightening.  I find it interesting that the angels never get on to people for being frightened.  It is almost as if they know our frame; our constitution if you will, and they are trying to strengthen our hearts before we pass out.  One such instance when an angel showed up and forgot to say, "Don't be afraid." is when Ezekiel saw his vision at the river Kebar in Babylon.  The Holy Spirit had to literally pick Ezekiel up so he could hear the word of the Lord.  My point is that God tells us to have courage for one very good reason; we need it.

Things can be quite scary at times and it is not foolish to tremble when frightening things come around.  However, we have hope in God who saves us and makes ways where there are no ways.  But in order to walk in those ways that God provides, we usually have to push through some terrifying situations.  One of my most favorite discoveries was that the word, "encourage" actually means "to put courage into" someone.  I always took that word to mean, "make them feel better and baby them."  But no!  It means to pick them back up and throw them back into the ring and say, "Go get'em!"  The only reason we need courage is because what we are about to go and do is scary.

Taking down spiritual strongholds in our lives and in the lives of those we love is a daunting task.  It is not to be taken lightly.  In many cases, we are going into places wear even angels move with caution.  Human hearts are delicate and when endeavoring to rescue them from darkness, wisdom and grace are a must.  Yet there are frightening and violent things that must be done at times in order to set prisoners free from darkness. 

If you are struggling with pornography, there is a violent dismembering of attachments that is necessary just so you can get to the root of the issue in your heart.  The removal of television and internet access from your life is something that takes tremendous courage in so many areas.  And this does not even set one free.  This simply puts you in a position where you can get to the root of the problem (selfishness and rejection) and pull it out without temptation getting in the way.  Still more courage is needed to face the elemental pieces of our souls and face the fears that lay at the heart of our struggles with sin.

If you are struggling with gluttony (compulsive over-eating with an unexplained hunger), then it takes extreme courage to watch your calories and ask someone to help you maintain a healthy diet.  Again, this simply moves some temptations out of the way while you deal with the heart of the issue and ask the hard questions about why you need to medicate your fears with food.  Courage is a must.

If you are struggling with sexual temptation with your boyfriend it will require great courage to run the risk that he may reject you and you may lose the emotional bliss that you have with him.  The risk is real, and in many cases likely, but the end result of sexual promiscuity (dishing it out to anyone you are not married to) is always heartbreak.  Yes, always.  But again, cutting off these unhealthy relationships will only give you some breathing room as you deal with the core of your problems.  Are you really wrestling with depression, abandonment, mistrust, abuse, etc.?  Courage is your life breath as you tackle these giants.

If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, you are going to need courage to keep searching for hope is a world that wants you to be addicted to hype.  It is not good enough just to have someone tell you that you matter or that they loves you.  You want to be loved; you want to really matter to the world.  It is going to take courage to put the pills in the toilet, tell your parents or spouse to lock the gun cabinet and not tell you the combination, go see a counselor.  Yet this is just a stop gap measure that allows you to find real hope and real meaning in a real relationship with a real God who has real love for you.  Courage can rescue you.

In Joshua 1:6, 7 Joshua tells the people to be strong and courageous.  Then he says, "be very strong and very courageous."  This was not even because they were about to go into several years of battle.  This was just so they could follow God.  They needed courage to forge a relationship with God and He would see to it that the battles were won.

Here is the most important thing to be courageous in, your pursuit of intimacy with Jesus Christ.  Overcoming sin and kicking the enemy to the curb will come easily when walking in right relationship with Jesus.  But yes, this takes courage.

The psalmist was always cheering himself up; placing courage into his own soul.  We can do this too.
In fact, we can do it for each other.  Pull out your strong divine weapon of truth and remind each other of who they really are in Christ.  Tell each other of God's greatness, His kindness toward us and His unmatched power.  Hebrews 3:13 says,

"But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." 

Help each other get clean.  Immediately after raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus gave instructions for those around him to remove his grave clothes.  We can do the same for others.  We can place courage in our own hearts and in the hearts of those wrestling with sin.

Pray this prayer with me, tri-state.

"Oh my soul, rest in God.  Put your hope in the Lord.  Put your hope in the God who saves.  put your hope in the one who makes ways.  Why are you downcast, soul?  Have you forgotten who is on your side, in whom you can always hide, on whose shoulders the mountains and oceans ride, who has never spoken to you and lied?  Have you forgotten who is on your side?  Be strong and courageous, oh my soul.  Be very strong and very courageous, oh my soul.  Don't give up.  Press on.  Fight the good fight.  Stand.  Oh my soul, take courage for your God in near.  You are not alone.  You are more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ.  no weapon formed against you shall prosper.  All who rise up against you shall fall. DO NOT BE AFRAID, oh my soul.  Instead, be filled with COURAGE."  

Amen.

Bless you all, dearly beloved of God.

David Warren

Letting Jesus Have His Way In You

Short and simple post today.

If the Tr-state really is at the epicenter of God's love for this nation (and I truly believe it is).  If Evansville is destined to be a city of refuge in the dark days ahead (and I truly believe that she is).  If the current generation of young people really is set apart as a chosen generation that will usher in the last day harvest of souls (and I truly believe this is who they are).  If these things are true, then what now?

We prepare the way of the Lord.

We prepare His way in this region.  We prepare His way in this city.  We prepare His way in this generation.  But most important, we prepare His way in our own hearts.  He is the one who rescues the heart and lifts the soul out of the depths of it's own darkness.  But we are the ones who invite Him in to do His work.  We are the ones who remove the blockades of selfishness, fear, self-reliance, etc.  You have just as much of Jesus in your life as you have chosen to have.  He is not hiding from us, we are avoiding Him.  This must stop if we are to realize our destiny as believers; if we are to realize our destiny as a city; as a region.  We must let Jesus have His way in us.

This is my prayer for the tri-state.

Bless you all,
David

13 Minutes

This is a slightly unusual post for me (though not if you truly know me), but this is so big in my heart right now, that I feel the need to share it with you readers of The Refuge City so you can intercede (pray) and prepare your hearts.

This Labor Day, I woke up from a dream early in the morning.  I don't dream a lot, but on occasion I have a significant dream that I believe comes from God.  This was one such dream.

In the dream I was asleep in my bed and was startled awake by a shaking.  I realized that we were having an earthquake.  It only lasted a few seconds and I assumed it was a minor quake with a local epicenter in the Tri-state.  The scene changed to my kitchen table where a few friends of mine were gathered and we were watching the news.  As it turns out, the quake had its epicenter somewhere in the east (in my minds eye, I was thinking eastern Pennsylvania).  The shocking part of the newscast was that the quake had lasted 13 minutes.  Pictures being shown were of entire cities having been leveled.  Then I woke up.

First, let me make this very clear that I am not prophesying that a 13 minute earthquake is about to hit Pennsylvania.  Dreams use a language of imagery that rarely turn out to be of a premonition type nature.  They usually point to something through a very artistic and representative manner.  For instance, earthquakes could represent getting one's attention or a hard season of unsureness about foundations in one's life.  While it could mean an actual quake is coming, even those natural quakes tend to point to a deeper spiritual event.

I immediately sent this dream to several friends of mine that I trust to seek the Lord about what He might be saying to me.  I received two responses that were completely independent of one another and were very near identical.

I share them both here with some more insight that I believe came later as I have been praying about this.  Following these interpretations, I want to give you some encouragement on how to prepare and how to respond as the Church in the Tri-state.

The first interpretation:

"The physical earthquake, though I believe He's saying it will happen, is not as much the issue He's concerned about.  The spiritual earthquake is more on His heart.  We often think of a shaking as a good thing in the church and in the world, as productive things come about from a shaking, but this will be different.  This shaking will bring down the foundations this country was built on...back when it was the 13 original colonies.  The beliefs of freedom, liberty, and God will crumble.  This will strongly effect the spiritual atmosphere in the east, but will also impact us as well.  While the physical earthquake will be very destructive, the spiritual earthquake with be even more so.  In the spiritual shaking, there will be an abundance of husks and chaff that will blow away in the wind and although the true grain will be left, it will be greatly diminished in size. 

Having said all that, I don't want to disregard that fact that there could be an earthquake of significant proportion in the east, but my Spirit is not as uneasy about that as it is to the spiritual fall out of this event."

The second interpretation:

"13 represents the 13 colonies.  The foundation of our country.  People are currently looking to our government to fix the country and their lives.  They depend solely on the government.  Our founding fathers looked to God for guidance our current leaders ignore Him.  Our country's foundation is not our government.  It is God.  God shook what we see as the foundation to the point of destruction.   God is more powerful than the most powerful government in the world.   Thus we felt His power.  He got our attention."

Since having and sharing this dream, the Lord has confirmed for me on several occasions that the number 13 is very important here.  In fact, one morning He sent me three confirmations in the matter of seconds that seemed to me to be saying, "I am serious about this and it is imminent (ready to take place or already underway but yet unnoticed)."   A final interpretive piece I want to add is about the word "minute".  Not only does this word also speak to the imminent nature of this dream, but I believe it refers also to the minutemen of the American Revolution.  These fighting forces, while not seen as a threat or even a reliable army,  made up about 1/3 of the fighting forces during the Revolution.  They were known for being ready to go to combat at a moment's notice and had the nature of being locally based and well acquainted with the fighting terrain.  I believe that the notion the Lord wants us to receive here is that we are to be "prepared" like this fighting force to spring to action without hesitation and part of our preparation is that we have intimate knowledge of the terrain in which the battle's are being fought.  


Along with this dream, the Lord brought to my memory a prophetic experience I had a few years ago in which He expressed that the foundations of the nation (Economy, Government and even the Institutional Church) were going to be shown as untrustworthy; that people would be scrambling from one to another without hope.  It was during this that He spoke very clearly to me, 

"People are putting their hope in the economy and in the things this world has to offer.  They are putting their hope in foundations that are crumbling.  Those who put their hope in the stone that the builders rejected will be the only ones standing in the end.  It (Jesus) does not look like a good corner stone.  It (Jesus) does not look like it will work.  Jesus is the only hope this city has." 

Many of the things we do and say as believers will be seen as foolish in the days ahead, but our hope is built on Jesus Christ and in the end, only those who hope in Him will be standing.

So what is the application here?  What are we to do as minutemen to prepare, and what are we preparing for?

In a nutshell, terra firma (solid ground) is a myth apart from Jesus.  As the trusted foundations of the people around us turn to gelatin, we need to already be standing on the Rock (Jesus).  We should be very familiar with the terrain or nature of Christ; so much so that it is reflected in our very nature.  We are to be those who offer hope that does not disappoint.  We can be ready to do this, but only if we fall on Him now before the shaking happens.  

Finally, I don't believe it was an accident that I had this dream on Labor Day (Labor Day is a celebration of workers and their positive effect on the economy and society as a whole).  Along with the fact that our nation's employment rate is in shambles and this is a major portion of the shaking that is going on, I believe He wants us to remember the following verse of scripture.

"Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief."
-Hebrews 4:11

Let us make every effort to make sure our feet are standing on the Rock or we shall have no rest and we will be sure to fall.

Bless you Tr-state.  Jesus is In You.

Dave Warren

Strong Divine Weapons: FAITH

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for."  My sister visited me recently and told me to meditate on that phrase.  She emphasized the word, "substance".

I know that about half of you could care less about the pictures I put up with my posts, but I have learned that a picture really is worth a thousand words.  For that half of you who really only look at the pictures, here you go.  The pictures really do connect with the content of the post and as you look at this picture, I hope that you will gain a better understanding of what I'm trying to relate in this post.

The word, "substance" really makes me think about food.  My wife cares for me deeply and buys me rice cakes to snack on in-between meals.  The idea of snacking on low calorie food during the lull between smorgasbords is to sort of prime your appetite for eating normal portions when it comes to dinner time.  Faith is nothing like rice cakes.  I think the spiritual equivalent of rice cakes is probably more along the lines of doubt and disillusion.  While eating a rice cake, I'm thinking, "I really hope lunch has more substance than this." and I start to get depressed about my dining life.

Here is where hope comes in.  As I walk to the fridge, I see that we have all the makings of a very nice sandwich of substance.  The refrigerator is literally full of promise.  No, I don't have a sandwich in my hands yet, but because I have the promise and I know that it is "real", I have hope for lunch not being a grand disappointment. 

Is anybody getting this?  If not, just go back and look at the picture again and maybe Jesus will tell you something that I can't.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for". 

Perhaps we could word it like this?

"Lunch is what yo have waiting in the fridge, not the rice cake you are snacking on at 9am."

How is this a strong divine weapon?  Well, when you suddenly have guests for lunch that were unexpected and you go to the fridge and you only have rice cakes , it will make more sense to you.  (Don't ask me why anyone would keep them in the fridge, just stay with me here.)

The phrase, "We walk by faith, not by sight" has taken on meaning for us that we translate as, "We believe that our rice cakes are big sandwiches full of meat."  NO!!!!!!  I have hope for my lunch being more than rice cakes because my fridge has "substance" in it.  I am not relying on what I see in my hand at 9am, I am counting on what "I Know" is provided for me in the fridge.  How do I know?  'Cause I went and looked and I saw it in there. 

How do we know that God will be real for us when we are in need?  Because we have been in His presence;  we have seen His storehouse and we know it is real.  It really is not this mysterious magical thing that just poofs into existence.  Faith is substance.  Faith is real.  Faith is a fridge full of sandwich fixings.  You don't need to hope God in to existence.  You have hope because He does exist.

Lots of seemingly random thoughts, I know.  Just go back and look at the picture.  That sandwich will tear down strongholds of hunger because it is real.

Bless you tri-state!  You are a city of refuge.  Begin to prepare yourself for those in need of that refuge.  It is coming.

Love, Dave