Help Us to Dream
Your
Dreams oh
Lord!
Your
Dreams oh
Lord!
I experienced a most unusual kind of breakthrough a few months ago when I was struggling to catch my breath during a bout of covid. I had asked for prayer the day before because of dark thoughts that were difficult to push out of my mind. Early the next morning, in between awake and sleep, I saw a troubling seen. In my mind's eye, I saw the shores of Normandy back in WW 2 during the storming of Normandy. I knew there was a lot of death on the beach but my sight of vision was above the bodies. Somehow I knew I was not just a bystander, I was on the beach, in the spirit.
Holy Spirit was singing over me: "Take one step after another, one step after another, one step after another until you take out the top guns." After I joined in the song a few rounds, I realized I was being nudged by Holy Spirit to get out of my sick bed and force myself to move around. So I did as long as my energy level could handle it. I returned to bed until the song and scene came back. Again and again throughout the day it mustered my courage to get up and force myself to move around whether I felt like it our not. By the end of the day my breathing was almost back to normal. I was making a remarkable recovery just by forcing myself to take the next step of obedience to help my physical body recover. The scene changed in my minds eye as the day progressed and I saw an enormous army in every direction, North, South, East and West as far as the eye could see, I saw no end it it in any direction. I was part of it and we all had the same very simple marching orders that kept us all in step, "One step after another...". Locked arm-in-arm by the elbows, nothing could get by us, the bullets somehow didn't seem to harm us, we didn't miss a step, we were all in perfect unity. I intuitively knew I was seeing God's people on earth joining ranks with all the patriarchs and lovers of Jesus through the ages as well as angel armies that were interspersed between us. Somehow through the prayers of heaven, those who have gone before us were physically joining our ranks. We were making a sweep of the place and none of us were falling down or missing a step. When we got to the top guns several days later in my minds-eye, the angels totally destroyed them, and we just keep going on step at a time. This vision returns to me often, especially when I am tempted to willfully refuse the "next step" or get focused on the "steps" another christian might be "missing." It helps me to stay on track, get re-focused on the task on hand, pray for the christian that might be stumbling and trust Christ the Captain to help them get back in step. Later in that first day, I saw that at the head of this army was the shape of a spear-head consisting of God the Father (Yahweh), God the Son (Yahshua) and Holy Spirit. A prophecy came to mind from another unusual place in scripture- "she is as the dance of two armies." Song of Songs 6:13. God is raising up an army of believers on earth joining through their prayers and "the righteous deeds of the saints" have learned how to partner with heaven's army so that God's kingdom advance will bring about the greatest harvest of souls, the greatest advances in every sphere of influence not by "domination" but by inspiration. By being light and salt, living by God's principles with weapons of love, prophecies fueling our prayer and our faith, partnering with heavenly hosts the prayers of the saints since Genesis chapter 4 are coming to pass in us, despite our unworthiness. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," is about to be seen in greater dimensions than we ever dared to imagine. Dutch Sheet's has heard the Lord call this time and season, "the synergy of the ages." I was seeing it in action through this vision and I began to understand that my call is simply to obey the "next thing" Holy Spirit leads me to do. I see this vision frequently when we meet for weekly prayer for our church, community and country's influence on the world. When I or another see it during our prayer time we pray into it and get even greater insight. One prayer warrior, Pam, saw how easy it must be to stay in step because of the great length of each row helping to hold us all in place. We can't lose, we are emboldened and strengthened by the support of each other. As Kevin Zadai often remarks, "This whole thing is rigged in our favor, we can't mess it up. We win. Nothing can stop us." Instinctively I know the top guns represents the "fiery darts" of the enemy uses in his attempts to distract or dissuade us from this advance of God's kingdom on earth. This massive army linked arm-in-arm embolden our faith every time we think of it. While not everyone in the body of Christ is awake enough to join this army yet, I know their day is coming soon. If necessary God will jolt them awake in His way, in His timing. My job is to keep my eyes and ears perked for the next step of faith He calls me to take. Today it means awakening much earlier than usual to finish sharing the vision in this blog. We don't need the over all battle plan or even need to know what the next "dart" from the enemy will look like. If we see a dart coming our way, the powerful weapons of prayer and our shield of faith is sufficient to extinguish the dart. Even at its worst the dart destroys by body, nothing can harm my Spirit destined for eternity with Messiah. This vision has become one of the many shields of faith that deflect those darts and can keep me from getting distracted from taking the next step. Not every step is easy, we need His grace, but our life is much simpler when we focus on simply the next step. I spent many years complicating things but not anymore! No regrets, no shame, no false guilt, just the next step. We ALWAYS have grace sufficient for the next act of obedience. When we choose to be "willing" to take the next step, He empowers it to be successful. As I write I sense Him reminding us that His grace IS sufficient. His supernatural power to equip us IS still alive and active and as we speak His word it MUST bring life and light. As my former Pastor Thom often said, "light can't help but push out darkness" even in the midst of a weak faith to believe it to be so. His word ALWAYS accomplishes what it was sent out to do- save, heal and deliver. He promised in His word that His plan for us is "exceedingly abundantly more than we could think or ask." We really have no clue what his abundance will look like on the "other side" of the next step we take. It really doesn't matter. He is altogether good, worthy of our trust and IS the head of this army after all. We ALL need His grace and mercy to keep us ALL in step but He CAN handle this. So we can choose surrendering our plans for today or the future one step a a time. This is a volunteer army but the riches and rewards of following One who gave it ALL up for us gives us the courage to say "yes". On the last day of pass-over, April 17th, I received confirmation to share this message in this blog today. It came from a very unexpected place. My sister had told me how radically the book, "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ" by Anne Catherine Emmerich helped lead her to have a greater reliance on the atoning work of Jesus as she read of her vissions of Christ's passion through the eyes of Canoness Emmerich. I had a nudge to start reading her first chapter on the final night of pass-over week, Saturday April 17th. Living in Germany Canoness Emmerich lived from 1774-1824. A Canoness lives in a convent but either chooses not to make a permanent vow or is not allowed to make that vow due to the lack of family financial support to do so. Yet Anne remained with the Augustinian convent until her death. The book is a compilation of her various prophetic visions and dreams that she or others wrote down on her behalf when at time she was unable to write due to the intensity of those visions. Though I can't attest that every dream and vision this lover of Jesus had is from the Lord, her humble re-telling of something I also saw, helped me see how people of very different theological persuasions living centuries apart can be changed forever by a similar vision. First she recounted what temptations the devil was pouring out before Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. The vision that struck me hardest was the streams of rebellious, idolatrous, ungrateful and lazy christians many of us would become. We were indifferent to his sufferings and took his suffering lightly. As Jesus saw how recklessly we would disregard His bloody sacrifice, Jesus began to sweat blood and asked for "the cup to be taken away, yet not His will but Thine be done," was His final response to His Father during these bitter temptations to walk away from the cross. Then something changed in the countenance of the Savior that gave Jesus an even greater resolve to take His next step towards the cross. Here is how she retells the vision: "The army of the future saints passed before the soul of our Lord, which was thus placed between the desiring patriarchs, and the triumphant band of the future blessed, and these two armies joining together, and completing one another, so to speak, surrounded the loving Heart of our Saviour as with a crown of victory....As these visions referred to the future, they were diffused to a certain height in the air." In the previous paragraph she describes the patriarchs also intermixed in these two armies: "The apostles, disciples, virgins, and holy women, the martyrs, confessors, hermits, popes, and bishops, and large bands of religious of both sexes-in one word, the entire army of the blessed-appeared before him.... Their whole life, and all their actions, merits and power as well as all the glory of their triumph, came solely from their union with the merits of Jesus Christ." I am humbled when I think Yahshua was strengthened in His hour of greatest need by the same vision that strengthened Canoness Anne Catherine Emmerich 1800 years later in a dark night of her soul then 200 years later in one of my darkest hours. Imagine if you can the reality of this. Yahshua, the God Man was strengthened in His resolve to complete His "next" step towards Calvary by the triumphant church who knew who they were and how to partner with heaven to form a mighty army "that the gates of hell could not prevail against". We are that generation. We get the privilege to advance God's kingdom on earth to fulfill the prayer Yahshua taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come they will be done on earth as it is in heaven. " Our Savior's victory is our victory and our victories are His victories. He is our inheritance and we are His. This remains hard to comprehend, yet because His word says it, we must take Him at His word. I am humbled at the privilege to take this next step of obedience by posting this vision and leave the results to the ONE who heads this army and will lead others to this blog in His perfect timing.
0 Comments
Psalm 25:3-5 TPT "Could anyone be disgraced when he has entertwined his heart with yours? But my foes will all be defeated and ashamed when they harm the innocent. Direct me, Yahweh, througout my journey so I can experience Your plans for my life. Reveal the life-paths that are pleasing to you. Escort me into your truth; take me by the hand and teach me. For you are the God of my salvation; I have wrapped my heart into yours all day long!"
King David wrote this psalm. How could he feel that he wrapped his heart into God's heart all day long? I have had difficulty with this. Most every morning I remember to surrender my day, my schedule to Him, yet as the day progresses, I find myself excerising my right to oppose his plans and do "my own thing," from time to time throughout the day. Can anyone relate? As I read the end of verse 5, I found myself praying, "Teach me, Yahweh (God the Father) Yahshua (God the Son), Holy Spirit how to remain there in my every interaction with others and the things you call me to ALL day long. You call me to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, show me what thoughts remain rebellious against you Yah (Great I AM). May only Spirit-led words come out of my mouth or out of my computer keyboard." There would be no Bathsheba issue or King Solomon for that matter, had David never strayed from this committment. Yet we see his heart IS a heart after God's own heart. He pursues wanting God's heart on the matters of that day and He got to see many miracles on the battle field against demon-possessed enemies because He went with God's plans over His plans many times throughout his years as a king that went to battle with his people. This in my life's goal- "to wrap my heart into God's heart all day long." His heart is LOVE made manifest. His heart opposes evil, confronts it, exposes it but NEVER with a shaming message. He is not the god of shame and condemnation. He came that we might have life and have it abundantly. Abundant love gives second and third chances and even 70 X 7 chances. It shows the "way of escape" out of temptation. It shows God's hesed love revealed in a verse that follows. Verse 7: "Give me grace, Yahweh! Always look at me through your eyes of love-your forgiving eyes of mercy and compassion. When you think of me, see me as one you love and care for." This is the reason God never insists that we do things His way. If He did, He would have robots. He always lets us choose, His way or our way, or even the devil's way (which is an exaggeration of our ways a lot of the time). If I resist and resist and persist in doing things "my way" the natural consequences are often not fun but very necessary in order for me to hate every false path. A small group of christian friends and I are watching and praying through Wanda Algier's study "Overcoming Religious, Jezebel and Leviathan spirits." These are common influencers in local churches that can dominate and hinder the work of Holy Spirit and the fruitfulness of churches and those in the body of Christ. I remember telling the group after we confessed our sins one to another in order that we may be healed: "we may not sense a release during or after this prayer but we will recognize rebellion more easily in ourselves and other so we can more freely choose the better way." Since that day I have recognized several areas of rebellion even in righteous sounding prayers and attempts to "bless" my church family, I have seen underneath these good-looking acts, a heart of rebellion that needed to be forsaken and confessed. "Though our sins be as scarlet, we will be white as snow." Today, after reading the right way to pray for God's plans in my life I am determined to return here often and pray according to His will for my hand to remain in His so He can lead me to His best. I don't want to settle for anything less. How about you? Perhaps if you are reading this you are getting convicted of some little or big way in which you have been rebelling against God. How do you know if it is false guilt or true conviction from the Holy Spirit? Here are some good questions to ask:
When I have heeded this advice, something comes to mind often instantly. I repent, go do what I felt a Holy Spirit nudge to do and almost instantly, I sense Holy Spirit again and start hearing from Him, the next act of obedience. Sometimes it is "sit and be still and return to my hesed bible study" to learn of His out of bounds love for me. Sometimes it is "put on worship music and clean your house." Sometimes it is "Go give your husband a hug and let him know how you appreciate his last act of kindness toward you." It is surprisingly simple at times. It is always deeply moving and humbling. Will He also ask me to do some things totally out of my comfort zone, things I feel ill-equipped to do, things impossible without His help-absolutely! The more I obey those "out of my comfort zone" kind of things, the more He blesses me with greater faith to step out and obey and the more I reap the reward of doing so. There is no condemnation or shaming from God when we recognize a rebel act on our part or an obedience step we missed. We simply are to call it what Holy Spirit calls it and go in the direction Holy Spirit leads us to do instead. He only needs our willingness, He provides the power to obey. I love that this is the gentle ways of our Good Shepherd seen in Psalm 25:5 "Escort me into your truth; take me by the hand and teach me. For you are the God of my salvation; I have wrapped my heart into yours all day long." I can spend days like this, then I back down and go my own way. Yet as soon as I see the untwining of my heart wrap, I can return here and choose to put my hand back into my Master's hand and 'stay' in Him through another glory-filled day. Thank you Jesus! Reading Psalm 107 and I feel so incrediby loved by God and wonder if you would like to "blush with me" as we ponder together His incredible love for EVERYONE in the world, including you!
Here is a sampling of this very long song God sings over us: "Let everyone give all the praise and thanks to the Lord! Here's why-He's better than anyone could every imagine. Yes, He's always loving and kind, and His faithful love never ends. So go ahead-let everyone know it! Tell the world how he brought through and delviered you from the power of darkness and has gathered us together from all over the world. He has set us free to be His very own!" Psalm 107 TPT 1-3 I started out reading this song and ending up hearing a song from heaven healing my very soul and delivering me from religious ideations of God that have been all wrong. Who are God's kids? In a sense, everyone on planet earth are His creation and I believe His desire is for ALL of us to be His kids in a more personal way. While we don't get to choose who are earthly parents will be, we do get to pick our spiritual Father. God lovingly knit us in our mom's womb and saw our embryo as it was being formed. Did you know that before He did that, He wrote a book all about the dreams He dreamed over us before, during and after our lifetime on earth? He had plans for our eternity that bring out the best in us and dreamed up how we could best influence the world and all of eternity with our unique giftings that He created us to "do very well." Yet He is too good, to force us into "His dreams" for us. Every minute of every day He lets us choose. His dreams or ours. Some days we might "stay on task" for 10 minutes and He has a reward awaiting us for that. Other times we might actually spend an entire day letting Him guide us and we find that day most blessed and somethings take it for granted that He was leading us all the way and wants to do that for us every day of our life. God's fatherhood sacrificed His own willing Son, Jesus, to cover our failures to "dream the dreams of God" so that we not only could dream those dreams but that we would develop a taste to want "only His dreams." Jesus, dreamed those dreams with His Father and suffered for us so we wouldn't have to suffer the consequences of our rebellion dreams against God's perfect and beautiful dreams for us. He dreamed those dreams for us even BEFORE He knit us in our mom's womb. God is too good to push or force us to follow His dreams for us. I believe even Hitler had a chance to see the beautiful book of God's dreams for him. Whether he saw them on this side of heaven, I can only think in God's mercy, he had many opportunities. Yet I do know that on judgment day, God opens two books. One of those books is the book with our names on it. Hitler got to see when He stood before God's judgment throne all the good dreams he missed dreaming with God throughout his lifetime. This is what Calvary was all about. God wanted us to see what great lengths He would go to in order for us to have the freedom and ability to dream and accomplish God's dreams for us on planet earth and for all of eternity. I believe Hitler is spending an eternity regretting his choice of rejecting God's plan for his own evil plans for the world. Regret is what hell is about. Jesus taught us a simple rule to know if we are following God's dreams or believing lies about "following our heart's dreams." Jesus said, "The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly." The start of those "dreams of God" being fulfilled in our lives is believing that Jesus's dream was to pay the penalty of all the times we choose our wimpy dreams for our lives over God's rich and bountiful dreams for us. He died to cover our regrets, He rose to show demonstrate the glorious riches of God's dreams for us and He sent the Holy Spirit to live in the hearts of those who looked and believed and received Jesus's dream for each of us to be our dream too! I believe that when we stand on judgment day, whether we spent 2% of our life dreaming God's dreams or spent a lifetime dreaming His dreams, God is a rewarder of those who let God's plan-Jesus- save us from our own finite dreams. It is never too late to start dreaming, I've learned. I have believed in my mind about these dreams of God for me for many years. Yet in many ways and for many years I have resisted those dreams for me and those around me. I too often listened to the father of lies tell me his dreams of failure, screw-ups and the inability of myself or others to ever "achieve" God's dreams in our lives. I regret those many times I turned off those who have not yet choosen the Fatherhood of God and taken the "first step" into God's dreams for His son's blood to atone for their "limiting" God's dreams in their lives. Yet I am thankful this week for the reminder duing "Pass-over week" that the blood on the doorposts of Israel when they needed deliverance from the Pharoah in Egypt represented the blood Jesus shed to pass-over those failures and regrets. Reading through psalm 107 in the Passion translation this morning made me realize we are all on equal footing. We have all failed to dream God's dreams for at least a portion of our lives. But God promises to throw our failures and shortcomings into His ocean of forgetfulness and start dreaming the dreams of God today. No matter how badly we blew it yesterday, we can start this day "choosing His dreams, surrendering our schedule and our plans for His." Here is the song that welled up in my heart. I started by regretting conversations with a granddaughter and singing this over her wounded heart today but I really believe the whole world right now needs to hear this song. If you agree, share this with your friends today. I heard God singing over the world: "I love you, I love you, I love you, not for what you do, but who you are." It is what you are in His eyes, in His dreams for you! That is why He loves you, it is why He sent Jesus and why He had me write this blog today. What prompted this song? I believe it was my response to this portion of psalm 107, let it sing God's love for us over our soul, spirit and body today: "For we rebelled against God's Word and rejected the wise counsel of God Most High. So He humbled us through our circumstances, watching us as we stumbled, with no one to pick us back up. Our own pain became our punishment. Then we cried out, 'Lord help us! Rescue us!' And He did! His light broke through the darkness and led us out in freedom from death's dark shadow and snapped everyone of our chains. So lift your hands and give thanks to God for his marveous kindness and for his miracles of mercy for those he loves! Some of us were fools, bringing on ourselves, sorrow and suffering all because of our sins. Sick and feeble, unable to stand the sight of food, we drew near to the gates of death. Then we cried out, 'Lord help us! Rescue us!' AND He did! God spokes the words, "Be healed," and we were healed, delivered from death's door! So lift your hands and give thanks to God for his marvelous kindness and for his miracles of mercy for those He loves!"- BTW He LOVES you! He proved it by writing everything in your book of life before one day came to be. He lovingly knit you in your mom's womb and I believe He is drawing you to Himself as you read this. Don't let the father of lies steal one more day of your destiny. It is NOT too late, you are not "TOO FAR AWAY". If there is life, there is hope." If you are still breathing that includes YOU! Yet- you get to choose, He will NEVER force you to come to Him but He sure wants to welcome you with open arms if you do! “You will keep in perfect and constant peace the one whose mind is steadfast [that is, committed and focused on You—in both inclination and character,] Because he trusts and takes refuge in You [with hope and confident expectation]. Isaiah 26:3 AMP
In March I overheard some news that brought confusion and some feelings of panic. I knew God is good and He is truth and brings order to kaos. I asked Him what I was to do with that news. I was expecting a lengthy prayer assignment to topple strongholds, destroy vain imaginations, that sort of thing He's taught me in 2 Co 10:4-6 over the past few years. Instead this is the calming yet hilarious picture the Lord gave me. I return to it often. It always bring peace to me and those with whom I've shared it. Today I felt I was to share it on this blog. Here is the picture the Lord gave me in my mind's eye that day: I saw myself dancing with Jesus, then the "camera" zooms out and I see we are dancing on a surfboard and I know there is a raging storm underneath the surfboard but I don't really want to look at it so instead I focus on the picture of me and Jesus dancing quite wildly on this narrow surfboard. I know the surfboard represents all the promises of God that are "yes" in Jesus. Then I hear God the Father say, "Get up on my feet child, I will teach you the steps. Soon the dance will get much faster. If you stay up on my feet you won't miss a beat." So I now look like a little child getting up on translucent feet, the only part of God the Father I see in this silly picture. The next thing I know we are whirling in an exuberant kind of dance and Jesus flips me up in the air and as I am coming down I hear Him say, "I will catch you every time you fall." I know I can trust that word and the peace of Christ holds me steady while we dance wildly in whirls and swirls, tosses, and smiles exchanged between us. Then He says, "look at the storm with Me and laugh at it ." I could feel my resolve to "not look at the storm" melt away. I felt I could trust His word to me. We looked at the storm and laughed then returned to dancing wildly. An incredible peace fell over me and I realized that though emotionally I had just been in a state of fear and panic, it was all gone and I knew my intercessory assignment has taken a radical shift. I was to celebrate and keep my eyes on Jesus, letting God the Father guide my steps. Later in the day, I see this same picture only now I see a light blue whirling translucent airy looking cloud whirling around me and Jesus. It was as if Jesus heard the question in my mind before I had a chance to ask it. He said whimsically, "Oh, that is the Holy Spirit keeping us from falling off the board." Today as I write this, here are some things that gave me further light from this picture: God is in a GOOD mood! He wants me to stay in fellowship with God the Father, Jesus the Son and Holy Spirit ESPECIALLY during life's storms. I need God's help and direction to "stay on board" of every promise that is made "yes" in Jesus. 2 Co 1:20. He wants me to laugh at the devil's attempts to return me to fear, fretting, worry, or getting fixated on life's problems. God has the solution. He is partnering with me. Each step I take in union with His WILL always take me in the exact direction I need to go. I only need to know what is my next step and trust God to help me do it. Relying on the Holy Spirit's power indwelling me AND all around me, I cannot fail at my mission or my calling. I WILL accomplish ALL He has for me in this dance that Father God has called, "Life in the Fast Lane." Heaven is celebrating great victories over evil and darkness in our day. While the enemy roars back and tries to knock us off our game, we are to laugh at his attempts to do so! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! |
Blog UpdatesLet us know your thoughts by leaving a comment! We'd love to hear from you! Archives
May 2024
Categories |