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| Thanks to www.candace.pentecostalpioneers.org |
The different between dreams and visions, you ask? Not much. Dreams are pictures in your head while you sleep. Visions are pictures in your head while you're awake. I was always intimidated by the word "visions" because it sounded like some sort of PTSD flashback. In the the book of Job, it refers to a God-given dream as "a vision of the night" (Job 33:15), which tells me that dreams and visions aren't so different after all.
As I was again paging through this handout, it seemed to me as though it were something I was now ready to hear - as though the first time I'd looked at it, I wasn't open to the idea of God speaking through dreams. So many things in this handout popped out to me!
1.) Dreams don't have to be a specific message for God to be using them.
We know that the mind sorts through the day in our sleep, that it is for our psychological well being. Things that happened to us, particularly if they were momentous, are often repeated in our sleep. I don't know why I separated secular science and Godly science so much, but it never occurred to me that this was God's way of protecting our minds. Of course God is using our dreams to cleanse us of the day's events, He created it that way!
2.) Everything was created good, and everything good is from God.
Now, this is not to say good things can't be twisted by sin and Satan. Of course they can. My point is that our imaginations were created good, and that good things are from God. God can speak to us through our imaginations as well as our dreams. That's where the "visions" part comes in. With a great deal of prayer, and with caution, I'm learning to trust my imagination to my Lord. I trust that I will get a true answer from Him when I ask for one. Naturally, I need to pray for protection from myself and from the ideas of the Enemy before just envisioning something. But the fact that we can trust our imaginations to be used by God was a breakthrough to me. My vivid imagination is a good thing! It's from the Lord! I hadn't realised that before.
3.) God has been speaking to me, about me, since I was a little girl.
As I paged through the handout, bits and pieces of dreams from my past jumped out at me. Bits and pieces that I just thought were memorable dreams, but nothing more. I have come to believe that God has been speaking to me in my dreams and visions since I was little. Let me give you some background before I tell you some examples. Firstly, I have always dreamed vividly, and I tend to dream in muted colours. My dreams are always intense, and I'm always present. Usually there's some big action going on that I am a part of or instigating. As a child I was rescuing someone or battling something. Now that I'm an adult, I'm trying to teach a roomful of needy students or navigating the halls of post-secondary myself. :P
Example One
One of my most memorable and repeated dreams as a child was what I think they (the writers of the booklet) call a Soul Dream. This type of dream isn't prophetic at all, it just reveals what your heart's desire is. I would dream, night after night, of rescuing my blond twin sister (I don't have a sister, much less a blond twin) from the clutches of the evil witch who lived in a great black castle. I didn't fight my way in, I sneaked. I remember hiding in the front closet among the jackets (in a castle, I know) and avoiding her robot henchmen until I could shut them down with a big, red button. In the end, my sister rescued, I put a special key into the lock on the drawing room gate/door and melt away all the darkness of the castle, breaking the curse over it and the witch. This is the only point in which my dream didn't have muted colours - when the curse broke and the castle came to "life." The darkness melted away. My "interpretation" of this? That I wanted to be a rescuer and fixer of people. That I didn't want to fight, but rather work around obstacles in a safe way to get to the heart of the matter and break curses that way. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a bit of a saviour complex. I always want to rescue people.
Example Two
My second most memorable dream only happened once, and I believe is what they call a Dark Dream. A dream in which God reveals the plans of Satan. We had just recently moved to Nampa and I was young; 10 to 12 years old. This dream was also in muted colors, and I remember hiding in a slatted wooden box while a lynx or some other big cat paced outside. Looking down I noticed an amulet, which I picked up and it changed into a sword. The pacing lynx left. Leaving the crate, I looked around and saw that there was an enormous snake, it's head the size of the room in which I now sit, coiled and prepared to attack. I had to get past it, so I drew my sword and cut off it's head. My interpretation? I believe the great cat was a watching demonic spirit, which left when I picked up the Word of God. I believe the giant snake to be the false accusation, gossip and slander which was coming against us, and which could only be overcome by speaking out in Truth from God's Word.
4.) It's okay to be a Christian Druid.
Now I sound off my rocker, and I'm sorry you think so. If you've read this far, though, please hear me out. I've always been drawn to the ancient Celtic religion. Not because of it's dark power, but because it felt like there was some truth there. Over the last few years I've managed to stumble across books and other materials which have brought me to the belief that all good things come from God. Pagan Druids and Christian Druids used the same "potions," they just called on different Powers. One demonic, the other Divine. About a year ago I accepted the freedom to be a Druidic Apothecary, making up "potions" of various sorts for various things while still giving God the glory. Now I've come to the place where I can accept being a Druidic Dreamer as well. Letting God reign in my dreams and visions, giving Him the glory for what he is revealing about me in them.
I'm sorry for such a long diatribe, I wasn't meaning to go on like this - actually, I didn't have a plan when I started. I just knew I wanted to write. Apparently I needed to.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. I'd love the chance to explain myself further over a cup of tea!
