Judgment like a flood

Last night I had a dream about a flood that was coming. When I woke up from it, I got up for a minute, and when I did, I noticed that the lights suddenly went on in the main flood of the house. I went downstairs to see who was awake and found my son curled up with a blanket on the couch in a fully-lit main floor because he had a scary dream.

“What was the dream about, Son?”

“It was about a flood.”

I was suddenly wide awake. So we sat on the couch and I listened to his dream. It was a simple dream; he’d been playing with his sisters when his dad got a weather report that a flood was coming. So everyone needed to go upstairs, and when the flood came, the water went up to the top stair, but it didn’t touch any of us.

We prayed and I tucked him into my bed next to his daddy while I returned to the couch to seek the Lord. I did not remember my dream as vividly as I usually do when I receive dreams from the Lord, but when the Lord confirms your dream through your son, you pay attention.

Here is what I remember from the dream followed by the warning the Lord brought to light in the face of it:

I was visiting a city where I did not live, I was with my husband and a close friend. While we were there, a warning went out that a flood was coming, and we were trying to get to a specific place in the city to be safe. The people we were with (who lived there) seemed to be our work colleagues and it was clear that they didn’t really like us much, but didn’t dislike us enough to want anything bad to happen to us. Most of the people around us seemed to know there was a flood coming and were a bit harrowed from the bad weather they’d encountered in the recent past. There were some who were just going about their business as usual.

We were trying to get across town from where we were, and the scene I remember at the end of the dream was a place of decision. We were in the apartment complex of the people we knew because we had helped them get home; it was a building with open halls connecting the rooms like you’d find in the south or a coastal town. They were trying to get to their rooms, and the halls were filled with long, orderly lines of people doing the same. They finally said to us with a hint of worry and reluctant kindness, “The flood is almost here, I don’t know if you will be able to get back, you can stay in our room.” When we said we couldn’t do that, they offered to at least watch our stuff for us so that we didn’t have to worry about carrying anything across town.

So we handed them our bags (and anything in our purses that might weigh us down). I specifically remember asking my husband and friend if I needed my lanyard with my wallet and keys and decided that I didn’t, and I hung it around the neck of the person who was offering me help. We turned to leave and they turned to go into their rooms. As I walked past the stone supporting wall of the apartment building on my way down the stairs—the opposite direction of the people going up higher—I reached out my hand and touched it saying, “I cover you in the blood of Jesus.”

As we were strategizing about how to get where we needed with nothing but the clothes on our backs, the air around us was abuzz with hurry and worry because of the impending flood, but even with the knowledge of what was coming, not all people were preparing for it.

That is what I remember from my dream.

As I prayed and asked the Lord to reveal to me what He wanted me to know through these two dreams, He made the following things clear to me:

First, judgment is coming to the USA. This dream was not pointing to the final judgments of the book of Revelation, but instead a much nearer judgment of a righteous God on a wicked nation. There is only one way to walk through this judgment, and it is as the Israelites stood secure in their homes in Goshen through the plagues on Egypt in Exodus 7–12, and that is to be under the blood of Jesus.

Second, there is purpose behind this judgment that is not merely punishment (although we absolutely deserve only that); this judgment is to bring about repentance because God’s heart for humanity is and has always been to save them and unite them in Himself (Ephesians 1:10).

As I wrote out this dream and talked to the Lord about it, I kept bumping into the word “harrow” and “harrowed,” so I looked up its meaning. A harrow is a tool used to cultivate, it breaks up and smooths out soil for planting. And to feel harrowed means to feel plundered and tormented.

The judgment that is coming will be as if the harrow of God sweeps across the nation and it will do one of two things to any heart not secure under the atoning blood of Jesus: It will either soften your heart so that it turns to His in repentance (this is His deepest desire), or it will leave you feeling plundered because what is good will be stripped away from you (God is the source of all that is good, in the rejection of Him, you will lose whatever is of His goodness that He has graciously allowed you to hold in your hands).

I do not know what stands before us, but there will be judgment like a flood (the flood in this dream stood for judgment); cover yourself in the Redeemer’s blood. He has already finished the work of salvation for us to take part in…there is no other way to endure what is coming without Him. Repent. Pray (for yourself, your family, everyone you know and love, your city, our nation). Receive mercy. Find refuge in the God who has loved you from the beginning.

From Zar to Citizen of Heaven

The Lord woke me up with a dream this week. In this dream I was registering patients at a hospital when a friend I knew from high school walked in with a woman who was having terrible chest pain. I picked up her registration form and my friend looked relieved because she knew I could help. I brought the woman back to my desk; she was uncomfortable and a bit nervous, but overall bright in her attitude and demeanor, confident that she had come to the right place for the help she needed. As I sat her down, I opened up the registration program for the first time (I had worked registration during college, so they didn’t bother training me in, just assumed I could pick it back up). As I got things going, I looked at my paper and noticed on the name line, she had simply written the word “Zar.” During our discussion, she told me that was the name she was called, and because she wasn’t ever called by her given name, she struggled to remember what her legal name was. After some digging, I managed to draw her first and last name out of her, and chose to register her as her legal name with Zar as the middle name.

I first tried to find a medical record that had been previously opened to build from, but she was nervous to give her social security number out loud with people around, so I let her type it in. Finding no record on file, I started a new one and was met with utter random confusion. As I tried to find the places to enter the information, I had to navigate through videos, games, flashing screens—every sort of entertainment was crammed into the program. I frantically tried to find the input areas to give the information needed to create a chart for the dying woman sitting in front of me, but my efforts were slowed and frustrated by the avalanche of unnecessary and distracting visuals.

When I finally made it to the end of the chart, utterly frustrated and overwhelmed, I hit print only to discover that autocorrect had changed the spelling of the legal name. I went out to check on the patient in the lobby, where she was waiting anxiously to be seen, and I desperately tried to figure out how to get her chart to the nurse so they knew she was ready even though I knew everything would have to be restickered because of the error in the legal name (although “Zar,” which I put in the middle name input slot had printed clearly). With my laptop beside her in the lobby, I desperately tried to find the screen with the name input to change it, realized in the fray I had never even found the insurance page and tried to get that information and seek out where input it…pages and pages of animated chaos hiding everything from me. My friend kept looking at me in confusion of why I wasn’t helping. All the while, Zar sat in front of me crying from her pain, dying in the waiting room of the hospital that was suppose to help her simply because they had chosen a registration program—the program that admits you to enter in for help—that was overrun by entertainment.

And in my desperate groveling for what to do, how to get her seen, how to navigate the impossible admission program, I woke up.

And when I woke up and thought about this dream, I cried out to God. Our culture is one of entertainment: It demands instant gratification and won’t venture forward without it; it laments boredom and simplicity (the very things that allow for the cultivating of curious and creative minds); it despises reality, wisdom and practicality (the things that allow for us to build lives well lived); it sucks away our time on meaningless things (social media, gaming, movies and shows); it takes our concentration and focus and availability to do the work God created us for. I did inventory of my own distractions, repenting for myself and the American Church.

I also looked up the woman’s name: Zar. The Hebrew word "Zar" means “alien, foreign, outside.”

This is the meaning of the dream and the exhortation to the body of Christ:
The hospital here is the body of Christ. People are dying outside of Jesus; desperate for help and for the Gospel. But we at the doorway, the ones meant to bring the Gospel to the lost and dying world so that they may know redemption and salvation, are failing. We are overridden with entertainment: flashy facades, video games, movies, TV, sports, activities, our own comforts, social media, anything fun. But people are dying! The lost are waiting to be found, the sick are waiting for the healing touch of Jesus, the broken are waiting to know the One who can put them back together, the confused are waiting for the clarity of Truth, the bound are waiting for their deliverer…and we who are suppose to reach out with the hands and feet of Jesus and draw them in are failing them.

Our heart for the lost must be GREATER THAN our desire for the flesh to be entertained.

Here is the passage the Lord gave me for this dream, please pause and consider:

Ephesians 2:13,17–20 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ…And He came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit."

A dream from Jehovah Shammah

Last night I had a dream. In this dream, I was standing in a church with a group of friends talking when suddenly one of them said, “Oh no! I forgot I was leading worship today, I need to go set up!” She then turned to me and said, “Come on, we have to go sing.” I was very confused because I didn’t know I was suppose to lead worship and I didn’t remember volunteering because I had recently discovered my voice was really weak, so I wasn’t well suited for it in this season. But I followed her into the sanctuary. We had about 10 minutes before the service started. The church was huge, and we walked up onto a big stage where a woman was playing a piano beside a bunch of microphones and music stands. I asked my friend, “Are you sure that we’re leading today? Someone is already playing.” She stopped to check the schedule and informed me that the woman was our accompanist. Then the next 10 minutes were filled with a bunch of scrambled chaos: The music had to be printed, but there were issues with how it printed and with a slow printer; we had to rearrange the setup, but the cords and stands were a tangled mess and hard to move, at one point I tried to reach for a microphone and it came disconnected from the cord and started hissing; as tech support came to help, people started filing into the room; there was a room divider that was partly lowered over the front of the stage that had to be raised; someone tried to help read something for us and couldn’t read; I didn’t know the songs I was suppose to be helping lead; the accompanist suddenly left because she was sick and the other singers were nowhere to be found…everything we tried to do to help order things or move them along failed, every step forward was met with multiple steps back, all of the pieces of the team and the technology were stripped away and by the time the service was to start it was me and my friend and our small acapella voices. The pastor said to us, “Don’t let this set you back.” And my friend said, “It’s time to lead worship.”

We looked at each other and the people in front of us waiting, and we opened our mouths and we began to worship the Lord. Our voices were small, but after a line or two, we found ourselves suddenly accompanied by the most beautiful heavenly music I had ever heard. It filled the room and wrapped itself around our meager voices giving them strength and drawing from us a deeply renewed and heartfelt sound. The room was soon filled with a resounding song of praise and worship as every voice joined with the heavenly music, each of us singing with all our might, “And He shall reign forevermore, forevermore!”

And then I woke up.

When I woke up the second time, I head this name spoken over me again and again: Jehovah Shammah. I looked up its meaning. Jehovah Shammah means “The Lord is there.”

I’ve been in a hard season. Before I had gone to sleep, I had been on my face before the Lord weeping, repenting, confronting my lack of faith. So emptied of faith am I in one specific area that I finally had to acknowledge to both myself and the Lord that I simply no longer believe a promise He had given me. My hands that had clung and the hope that had held were too weak, the efforts for a different story and a new measure had come up empty too many times, the years had worn me down with discouragement and resign…and though I believe the Lord is who He says He is, my confidence in His promise to me has been lost in the eroding avalanche of my weakness. And I grieved as I declared His worth and offered Him my worship void of expectation of help.

And He gave me this dream and this declaration. 

 

“The Lord is there,” He whispered over me as I slept. He is there when all is stripped away; when efforts fail and time is too short and chaos crushes out peace; when the inadequate measure I walked in is tested and found wanting in new ways as the situation changes before me; when human fortifications are faulty; when every set back has left me certain that there’s no way forward; when in that place, I worship still. He is there. Reigning still, able to provide the missing measure with beauty that draws from deeper wells. Reigning forever, worthy of worship and accepting even the most meager sound that dares fall from the most unseemly mouth.

And I don’t know if you resonate with any of this, but I thought maybe there was someone who needed to be reminded with me that not only is there a God, but He is Jehovah Shammah; very present and full of grace.

Consumers or contributers

The Lord gave me a dream the other night that I’m going to share with you. It’s a fairly intense dream, but it holds both caution and exhortation, so even though it is personal and actually fairly emotional for me to share, I’m going to do it anyway.

The dream had two parts.

First, my family and I were on vacation in the mountains, and while we were there, we bumped into a whole bunch of tourists who were raving about tours you could go on where you could visit bears in their caves; guides would bring you through a series of caves where you could stand in the middle of mama bears and their cubs and interact with the cubs. To enter the tours, you had to go to the other side of the mountain, but there was a cave nearby, so I ventured in to see what it was all about. Inside there were mama bears and cubs of various sizes, the guides would have everyone walk quietly and move slowly, and the cubs walked among the people and let them stroke their fur. The mama bears mostly slept and laid nearby while these interactions took place, and the guides were on the lookout with bear spray and other tools to ensure that they didn’t hurt anyone if they rose up to protect their young. Both the mama bears and the cubs were not growing or functioning as bears should; they weren’t allowed to leave the cave and experience the world, nor were they allowed to interact with each other naturally. The bears were reduced to a tourist attraction, a spectacle to be consumed by the curiosities of humans.

In the second part of the dream, we arrived back at our rental home, it was tucked up in the forest and everything was covered in a blanket of pure white snow. As I was getting out of the car, I looked up and saw Nathan standing in awe with his hand on the back of a beautiful baby animal. It looked like it was glowing slightly, as it stood out against the white snow. It had just recently been born, and a short distance past it, not yet standing, was its twin. Jane and Sia was so excited, they ran up to the standing animal and began playing too roughly with it in their toddler joy. I looked around and saw the mother a few trees away; she had just given birth and was laying in a pool of blood, resting and trying to recover from a hard labor. I was moved with compassion for this weary mama, and was also suddenly struck by the danger of the situation: Not only was the baby too young to be handled, but a mother protects her young, and what if the mama woke up? I called for Jane and Sia to step back, and Nathan, recognizing what was going on, tried to help. In spite of our best efforts, the mama woke up. She snorted and lunged toward her baby, and Nathan sprinted to get Jane and Sia. But the mama was too weak; she lurched forward, staggering…and suddenly, in the chaos of this moment, a large crowd of people burst out of the woods beyond them excited to see the new baby animals. There were tourists, a photographer wanting to get the perfect shot, and guides telling the people to move quietly and stay back. The weak mother began to panic, staggering between the trees and babies like a trapped animal. I begged the photograph to leave and to make everyone go away; I told him that the babies weren’t ready to be handled, that the mama hadn’t healed yet and she hadn’t been able to tend to them as they needed to be tended to so they could grow into what they had the potential to be. And finally, as he reluctantly agreed to leave, I looked around at the pure white snow and saw that it was stained with bright red blood; pools and streaks and splatters covered the ground. And in the emotional pain of the moment, I woke up.

When I woke up and considered this vivid, detailed dream, I realized that I had been thinking that these animals were deer (a doe and two fawns), but I realized as I looked at them that they were not deer, they were camels. The mom had a hump and a long neck, and the baby stood taller than Nathan. This startled me, because camels don’t live in snowy mountains, they live in deserts. These were unique and different creatures to be found in this place; they were not the usual bears that the people were used to seeing and using for their own pleasure and purposes. These babies were not to be used, not touched or even looked upon until the right time: first, the one who birthed them needed to heal, to adjust to her new environment, and to take the time necessary to raise up the babies to their full beauty and strength. Until then, they were all much too vulnerable.

There are many things in this dream that were just for me, but here is the caution and the exhortation for others:

The tourists in this dream are those in the Body of Christ who walk out their faith as consumers. They go from person to person, place to place, soaking in and taking part in the work that God does in other people’s lives. They observe and delight in the faith journeys of others, hunting down the thoughts and efforts of other believers so as to take what they can for their own pleasure and encouragement. They are like the 5 foolish virgins in Matthew 25, wanting to borrow the hard-earned oil from their neighbors’ lamps.

But here is the thing, you can’t borrow another’s faith and think you can stand on it when you face the righteous Judge…while there is nothing wrong with delighting in and finding encouragement in the work of God in each other’s lives—we SHOULD be testifying, bearing witness to and encouraging each other, that is the mandate of walking in fellowship—we must be very careful to ensure that we aren’t ONLY consuming the fruit of the faithful lives around us.

Are you bringing what God has given you to share with others? I’m not talking necessarily about service…I am talking about contributions of your faith journey. All that any of us really have to bring to the Body is whatever the Lord places in our hands…but it is our responsibility to seek Him, to wrestle with Him for blessing, to taste and see and declare, to contribute what He has given us to hold, to speak the truth of who He is and what He has done in and for us in love…to bring to the table a basket full of the spiritual fruit of our labor of faith. The Body needs these individual baskets so that it can be completely edified and come to full fruition.

Are you contributing? Because when we walk in fellowship as mere consumers, we actually threaten the well-being of those who are growing around us, because we are taking from their spiritual lives continually without replenishing them with our own.