Had you ever tried to recall a
dream, but it quickly dissipated after waking up? Perhaps there was a trace or
remnant of a dream, a person, place, or thing, lingering in the mind, but as
with most dreams, it all quickly fades away, and we are unable to retrieve our
dreams at will. Recalling a dream is like trying to grab smoke and put it into
a bottle and share that smoke for others to see. This is essentially what I was
trying to do every time I would share a dream. Maybe it is best to simply leave
sleeping dogs lying?
Of all my dreams to date, there
are only three that defied the vanishing act of going up in smoke, and I have
retained every detail. You may have similar experiences. My oldest dream will
be forty in eight more days; the other one is a little over 2 years of age, and
the youngest happened yesterday morning. There are two memorable dreams, besides
these three, that have scanty details, and are not in the same category of
recalling the minutest of details but were reoccurring nevertheless which is
perhaps why I remembered some of the details surrounding them.
One reoccurring dream during my
military service was running at a slow pace along a road. No matter how hard I tried
I could not run any faster. I never figured out what was restraining me. The
other one started around 2009. When I began sharing the truth of the Word of God
digitally or blogging on the Internet, I started having dreams of being stalked or chased by a single lion.
I still cannot figure out what
precipitated or triggered those terrible lion dreams, and no, I do not have a phobia
of big kitties, and it would be foolish not to have a healthy respect for them
anyway in the real world, especially if they are on the loose and after you
like in my dreams! Naturally, I wouldn’t want to be eaten by one any more than
you would! I don’t think I would taste good anyway. Do you know why cannibals don’t
eat clowns? They taste funny. Lions are not picky; they would eat clowns and
me, too, for I am not all that funny!
Anyway, have you ever sat up in
bed and found yourself drenched in a cold sweat with your heart pounding
against your chest? I couldn’t tell you a thing about those dream times, but I
bet my rapid eye movement (REM state) was in supersonic mode; something
unpleasant got me into that body position physically! And no, it wasn’t guilt…!
This last Sunday my dream was
different than all of the other lion dreams. I was fearful, of course, but I
wasn’t running this time except to help rescue other people. In this dream the lion acted differently than all the others in my dreams; I
suspect it was not the same lion, but it still looked fierce and powerful! So,
let me tell you about it.
I was on the back deck of this
home. In my dream, I knew this location, but in reality, I didn’t. There were
only two homes on a cul-de-sac on the top of a hill somewhere. From my vantage
point, the other home across the street was slightly higher in elevation; the
road made a gentle descent past that house to the other one. There were two unidentifiable
people casually walking in the backyard.
I was standing on the deck that
extended to the edge of the house. I had wedged my body in the corner of the
deck railing, slightly tilted forward, and was looking down at them when
something caught my eye at my 10 o’clock position, approximately 75 yards away,
in front of the neighbor’s house. A large muscular lion suddenly appeared out
of thin air in the front yard of the neighboring home and at the crest of the
road. It was as if it came through a portal crossing from one dimension into mine,
but there was no detectable trail leading to the other side. This cat was huge,
easily carrying several hundred pounds of body weight with a tawny coat and an
eloquent but shaggy-looking mane.
Adjacent to the left of that house
was a small corral of horses, about a dozen or fewer. The odd thing about these
horses was they were not snorting or stirring on the verge of panic with the
kicking against the wood sounds; they were all still as if lifeless, facing
toward the back of the property unaware or disinterested that the big cat was
behind them separated only by the wooden fence of the corral. I thought it was
odd that all I could see of the horses was their behinds! Was it possible they
knew the lion was there but posed no danger to them? Being motionless and quiet
made me believe that this was the case; odd as it was, I was on full alert, not
taking any chances.
This makes me wonder if the lion
in my dream was of the tribe of Judah (Gn 49:9; Rev 5:5), the Aslan that C.S.
Lewis spoke about in The Chronicles of
Narnia, and not the lion of the
darkness (my terminology, cf. 2 Cor 11:14), my adversary (1 Pet 5:8). Both of
these large cats in my dreams were magnificent and beautiful but one had a very
dark, dark heart, the one absent in this one and only dream, as I will later
realize.
Surely, I thought, the horses would serve as a distraction for the lion that was looking my way. I yelled at the people below, “Get into the house as quickly as possible; there is a lion on the loose across the street!” Unfortunately, they had to run around to the front of the house, and go up a flight of stairs onto the deck to get to the front door. Interestingly, they didn’t contest my words as some kind of joke; they must have spotted this fearsome-looking beast at the same time that I did!
Surely, I thought, the horses would serve as a distraction for the lion that was looking my way. I yelled at the people below, “Get into the house as quickly as possible; there is a lion on the loose across the street!” Unfortunately, they had to run around to the front of the house, and go up a flight of stairs onto the deck to get to the front door. Interestingly, they didn’t contest my words as some kind of joke; they must have spotted this fearsome-looking beast at the same time that I did!
Immediately, they ran for the
front door. As they were running around the house, I took off through the house and went
out the front door onto the deck (why did I do that!?). Wouldn’t it have been
more sensible to stay inside the house and hold the door open for them? By the
time those two people scurried up the stairs and passed me on the deck at the
top of the stairs, the lion was already at the foot of the steps looking up at
me. I wasn’t able to track its attack path from the house across the street; it
just appeared like it did the first time, out of nowhere, looking at me on the
deck (What was I thinking in my dream?).
Rather than coming up the steps
in a giant leap or two, the big cat remained very still keeping its eyes glued
on its “prey” like our house cats do when they are in predator mode. Its large incisors remained hidden from sight so I didn’t know if it was
going into its predacious mood, ready to flash its “pearlies” and pounce and
kill me. I was a little rusty on reading the body language of a lion on the
loose in rural America.
One thing was certain; behind
those pale amber-colored eyes was a savage beast that could easily tear me from
limb to limb (Psa 7:2; Dan 6:24). It could have overtaken anyone of those
hapless horses or one or both of those two people running for the door if it
wanted, but apparently this beast was only interested in me! The last
thing I can remember in my dream was calculating whether I could make it to the
front door before it reached me. My heart was pounding in my chest. When it
dawned on me that I probably would not make it to the door given this
lion’s ability, the sun broke through the window. Awakened from my sleep, I was
saved by the light! I’ll never know if I would have made it to the door or not.
Unlike the myriad of times
before, I could tell Beverly my dream in vivid detail, which I did! When we
were at church later that morning, I was sharing with some friends of mine
about my recent dream. A friend of theirs who overheard me had betrayed her
feelings by her subtle facial expressions. She had this dismissive look with a
slight hint of being humored. She probably thought I was a loon! For some, the
world of the supernatural is a world of make-believe. This dream was nothing like looking
into a crystal ball, having your palms read, gazing into the stars, or having your
future foretold with the shuffling of the tarot cards kinds of things!
Again, this dream was different
than most of my dreams; I remembered it! Now, I have said before that I don’t
put a whole lot of stock in dreams; it is really an unwise decision to invest
in any dream that goes against the grain of the teaching of Scripture, but I
don’t see this reoccurring lion theme as violating any scriptural teachings
though I am not completely clear as
to its meaning. I know God has spoken to others in dreams. For instance, there
was nothing in the Old Testament telling Joseph to go into Egypt with Mary and
Jesus to get out of harm’s way (Mt 2:13; cf. Mt 1:20; Mt 2:19).
Giving directions in dreams is
not revealing new truths or in the same league as special revelation. God is
sovereign; if He wants to communicate with us in other ways than the Word like
in dreams and visions, who are we to say He cannot do such a thing? Any communications
from the LORD, however, will always be compatible with the truth of Scripture
for God will never violate His Word, and the fruit of it will declare its
nature and source.
Since we have the whole canon of
Scripture, dreams or visions are not substitutes for the Word! I say this as a
word of caution because experience is trumping the authority of God’s
Word today, much like the oral traditions of the rabbis in New Testament times (Mk
7:9) and still going on today. It is apostasy and very scary stuff when
believers fall into this snare of allowing subjective experiences to supersede
the authority of the objective truth of God’s Word!
So, what did I take away from
this dream from Sunday morning? I think it was sort of a capstone to the series
of troubling lion dreams and something to be shared with others. I am coming up
on my fortieth spiritual birthday on January 19th. It is a
milestone in my spiritual pilgrimage. Since the devil is the adversary of all
believers, he desires nothing more than the destruction of all followers of
Jesus Christ (Where do you think ISIS gets its attitude?). From these lion
dreams I have survived the various attempts by the lion of darkness to stop me
in my tracks; Satan has been unsuccessful to date by the grace of God.
This lion of darkness is to be
taken seriously and not carelessly! We see his ravenous appetite with Job’s
children and servants like those lions trapped in the den with Daniel (Dan
6:17, 22) and possessing a ferocity that consumed Daniel’s enemies (Dan 6:24). In
all of those dreams, like Daniel, I could say, “My God sent His angel and shut the lions' mouths (Satan or his
demons), so they have not hurt me” (Dan 6:22).
We have no idea what Yahweh has protected us from until we
get to glory! All those near misses that we know about (medical afflictions and
so forth) and all of those we don’t! We are all in a spiritual war (Eph 6:12)
that is looking to pick a fight with every believer on the planet. The entire
earth is a spiritual war zone if you hadn’t noticed, and the wake of destruction
should be obvious to spiritual eyes – “I once was blind but now I see,” right?
The lion that goes to and fro
throughout the earth, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8; cf. Job 1:7), cannot
circumvent God’s will and randomly attack believers on a whim without God’s
approval. Notice Yahweh restricting Satan’s actions against Job (Job 1:12; 2:6).
This reveals a great truth that nothing enters our lives unless God
orchestrates or allows it to happen, a blessed truth, that is until it hits
home (cf. Job 1:21; 13:15a)….
The hedges are being hinged (Job 1:10, 11) and the killing fields are already expanding in the world against the believers with greater frequency and brutality; this will be particularly true during the seven-year tribulation period and all over the place on the back half. Thankfully, the Church will not experience God’s wrath poured out on the earth during the Trib-period (cf. Rom 5:9; 1 Thes 1:10; 5:9), but it ultimately will be realized eternally by those cast into the lake of fire (Mt 25:41).
The hedges are being hinged (Job 1:10, 11) and the killing fields are already expanding in the world against the believers with greater frequency and brutality; this will be particularly true during the seven-year tribulation period and all over the place on the back half. Thankfully, the Church will not experience God’s wrath poured out on the earth during the Trib-period (cf. Rom 5:9; 1 Thes 1:10; 5:9), but it ultimately will be realized eternally by those cast into the lake of fire (Mt 25:41).
Remember me standing there
between the lion and those two people? I do believe in this one of all the lion
dreams that this One was of the tribe of Judah. It was a foreshadowing of
something in the future I must do in confrontation with the lion of the
darkness – “stand,” concerning something pertaining to the truth. The presence of
the lion from the tribe of Judah and me standing there between Him and those
two people were reminding me to stand against the wiles of the devil. I cannot
do it without the panoply of God (Eph 6:11). Something is going to require me
to take a stand as my 40th spiritual birthday rolls around (I’m
speculating that’s the time frame, maybe not).
Am I going to be afflicted or assaulted, or something bad is going to happen to my family or what? I haven’t
a clue. I know the devil doesn’t like M-G, and he doesn’t like me. I truly
believe that the lion of darkness would rather kill me right on the spot
and be done with me. Recall what the pastor said last Sunday morning. When you
stand, “the fight will be on.” As believers, we can stick our heads in the sand
like an ostrich and say, “I’m not in the fight! I’m not in the fight! I just
want to go to heaven when I die!” Poor thing, we are all in the fight whether
we like it or not provided the Holy Spirit lives within us.
The devil knows who belongs to him which is why play acting is kind of stupid being
HI-HOs, half in living for God and half out and living for self. Even a
half-stance will burn the HI-HOs. The lion of darkness hates us because it
hates Jesus, and if Jesus lives within you, Satan hates you, too (Jn 15:19;
17:14)! We are all in this fight whether we like it or not. Let’s just say it
comes with the territory (Jn 15:20; 2 Tim 3:12). The cool thing is; we are on the
winning side, but it still could get rough here before the rapture! I
appreciated what our pastor said, “I want to look back without any regrets and
look forward without fear.” What did I take from my dream? Stand and fight.
Read Eph 6:10-18 on how to take a stand against the devil. “My
brethren, be strong in the Lord
and in the power of His might” (Eph 6:10; cf. 1 Jn 4:4). The lion of the darkness
and his pride are coming.
<><
PS: During the millennium the
lions of the field are going to eat straw, not meat (Isa 65:25; cf. Isa 11:6, 7, 8-9)!
I’ll be glorified before that happens and no more kitty dreams!
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