Interactions with God #85

Around October of 2000, Pastor Brian, at the North Phoenix Vineyard Church, asked me to do a Sunday night teaching in December.  His goal was to help us build a larger church planting team prior to a scheduled sendoff sometime in March or April. 

When I prepare for a message, whether in a home group setting, Sunday school class or in a main Sunday service, I begin by just listening for God.  I want the message to be from Him.  Anyone can teach biblical stuff, if you do enough study.  But if I can offer a biblical message with the heart of God, it is more likely to have a greater impact.  Of course, God, being in charge of all things, can use a message from a two year old if He so chooses.  Either way, my heart was to speak what God wanted, not what I wanted.  So after Brian asked, I began to listen.  It didn’t take long.

Either that night or a few nights following, I had a God dream.  It was the first of three that were to be incorporated and used as a guide for the message I was to deliver.  How did I know?  I can’t really say, I just did.  The first dream came that night in October.  The second on a night in November. The third came in early December a week before I was to deliver my message.  This Interaction with God is the first dream.

In the dream, I found myself older, sixties or seventies I think. I wasn’t sure.  I was staying with a man who apparently was an old friend.  Also staying with us, was another man who was an older retired black Baptist preacher.  Both of these men were great friends of mine in this dream.  We were all staying in this small ranch house on a suburban street.  Though none of this information was spoke, I knew it in the dream even as it began. 

I have said before, that these God dreams are very realistic.  Sometimes I even wake up wondering if these things are not memories.  In this dream, I was me.  The men I was with, I didn’t know in real life, but definitely did in the dream.  The other thing in the dream was that I was dying.  Cancer, I don’t know what kind, but what I did know was that there was nothing more that could be done to cure it.  I was there in this house waiting to die.  Both men were there to basically see me off.

All of this information was known to me as the dream opened.  I was sitting in this house, by myself, in the living room.  I was looking out the front window, which was open because it was warm outside. I was watching as children were playing in the front yard.  Suddenly, I heard singing.  It was a loudly and beautifully sung worship song, coming from the roof of the house.  I watched as the children stopped playing, then looked up at the roof and began to sing along.  It was an angel singing on the roof.  In the dream, I did not see the angel, but I knew what it was.  I sang along as well sitting there in that little living room.

After the song ended, the other two men came into the room.  The man who’s house we were staying in asked what happened.  I explained that an angel was on the roof of the house singing.  I even told them what song the angel had sung.  The old black preacher then started to sing the song with a great baritone voice!  I sang the song again with my two friends.

The dream shifted at that point.  I found myself in the bathroom getting ready for bed.  I was alone.  As I looked in the mirror I saw death on my face.  I can’t tell you how I saw it, for in the dream I didn’t see anything, yet I knew I saw death…on my face.  My time had come. I was going to die in a very short time.  I left the bathroom and lied down on a bed in a room which was apparently mine to stay in.  I lied on my back.  Moments after I did, I saw Jesus, my Lord standing with one foot up on a chair, leaning with his arm on the back of it.  He was looking away from me, then casually turned to look at me and said, “You ready to go?” 

What struck me the most, in the dream, was His casualness.  I replied, “Yes.”  I then followed Him as He walked out of the room and out of the house.  We exited through the front door, where there was a small porch.  I was feeling rather apprehensive.  I was not sure what He thought of me.  I was really concerned that He was not happy with me.  I felt a growing sadness that I wasn’t important to Him.  It was then that He stopped on the porch and turned to look at me.  He said, “What?” and gave me a look like He knew that I wanted to say something but wasn’t sure how.

“Can I hug you?” Ok, even trying to write this I have to fight back tears… He replied almost amused, “Of course!” and gave me a great big smile.

I woke up, already in tears with my arms already having closed around Him.  Feeling every bit of it like it was real.

It is a strange thing to wake up in tears, tears that must have been cried in your sleep.  What I didn’t know, was the purpose of the dream or the real meaning.  That would come in December.  What I did know, was that it was not a prophetic dream, meaning I am not slated to die in my sixties or seventies of cancer.  I don’t know how I am going to die, but I do know, when I do…He will be there, and I won’t be apprehensive.  I am rather looking forward to it.