Can You Overcome?
The first prophetic dream that I ever had was on a trip with a college professor. She asked us to go with her to evangelize and love on her people, and so we did. Each time we would spend two weeks. Each team had an interpreter. As we would go around to these churches and community centers, we would talk to the people about America and about Jesus, what life was like in the United States, and encourage them to find hope in this time where the wall had fallen.
The people were incredibly hospitable and we felt so cared for and loved. Staying in homes gave us such a personal insight into the hardships that believers faced. One of the families that we had the privilege of staying with had cherry trees and they would make these gallon glass jars of cherry juice with the whole cherries in them. It was delicious and beautiful to look at. But, because they were believers, their neighbors would spread rumors about them; like that they were drinking blood and they were part of a cult. It was heartbreaking to see them misunderstood in that way. Partly because when you would tour the old Orthodox churches, you could still see the bullet holes in the community buildings and where the communist government had shut the churches down.
For a generation there had been no voice for Christ, no Bible, no Word, just state religion; sacraments and memorization, but not relationship. Yet there was a remnant, a remnant of people that still held faith to the Lord, still loved the Lord, and it was a growing remnant a growing church and beautiful to see.
I had nightmares my entire life. Every night something was always chasing me. And it was in such a way that they didn’t bother me, they didn’t wake me up. Most days I woke up tired from being chased all night; but this dream woke me up.
This dream was so vivid and so real. And in this dream, we were standing in the street and we were doing evangelism. I saw these two men at the back of the crowd and they began asking questions. In the dream, they wanted to take me aside and saying they wanted to ask me more questions and then they did horrible things and killed me.
The next day, we are doing the street evangelism and the spiritual warfare is so intense. The hair was literally standing up on the back of my neck. I was not prophetic at the time. Of course, I believed in the Holy Spirit and was raised in the Southern Baptist Church, read the Bible like crazy.
Thank you, missionary grandmother; and of course, knew the Holy Spirit; but not at the level that that I do now. I knew this dream was of the Lord. As we are speaking even these dogs begin fighting. They’re literally tearing at each other’s throats. They’re bumping into the back of our legs as we are preaching and giving testimony, through an interpreter.
Then the police come. We wonder if they’re going to stop the meeting because a large crowd is gathering and that can be considered subversive. They don’t. They begin to listen. And at the back of the crowd, there’s the two men. They do begin asking questions through the interpreter. One man is angry.
His wife had died six months before and he was drunk. His friend was drunk. They were not in a good place, nor would would I be had that happened while not knowing the Lord.
They came around to where I was standing. One of the people on our team was a SWAT team member from Longview. Because of that dream, I just snuggled up right beside him. The men kept gesturing for me to go with them. I didn’t speak Russian and or Ukrainian, and they didn’t speak English; so I certainly wasn’t going anywhere. The Lord saved my life that day through a dream.
It’s a beautiful thing, prophetic dreaming. If the word “Prophetic” bothers you, throw that out the window; just call it a dream from the Lord; because whether you are a Baptist and it’s a dream from the Lord, or whether you’re charismatic and it’s prophetic dreaming, it’s the same thing. It’s just different lingo.
The Lord communicates with His people. As we grow nearer and nearer to the end days, the signs and wonders are increasing. The old men will dream dreams. The young men will have visions.
It is an amazing time to be alive and, and scripture says that you should earnestly desire the gifts and that you. That word in in the Greek means to ‘zealously lust after’. You should zealously lust after spiritual gifts. Your daddy wants you to pursue them. Your father in heaven wants you to want the gifts. He wants you to demand what is yours. What is your inheritance? So ask him, Papa, can I become a ___?
If you remember in the first few chapters of the gospel, Matthew, the history of the world is changed, I think four times through a dream (It’s five). Dreams are Biblical. Dreams are a huge evangelism tool with Muslims, they believe in dreams; so if God believes in dreams and the enemy uses dreams with the Muslims, I think it would be an exciting ride to get on.
Another thing I encountered was people saying that they were praying for me not to go on the mission trip because they were worried that I would die; but yet, when you are in the center of God’s will, if it’s not your time, it is not your time and besides, He can send a dream, or cause you to have a stomach ache, cause you to go a different way and put you where you need to be.
I love history because it’s “His Story”, right? I think we’re gonna get to sit around for all of eternity and watch each other’s lives, play out on the big screen, and see all of the ways that God interwove our lives together with one another and with him to keep our feet upon the path, like Jeremiah 29:11 where he says He will prosper you, prosper your way. That means He puts your feet on the path to get you where you need to be. Life is not a straight line. Life is a curvy road. Trust Him in that road. Keep asking Him. Keep decreeing and declaring what you need in prayer and keep walking forward bacause it’s fun.
Not always, there’s hard times; but don’t lose your love for living. Find it again. Learn how to dream again. Learn how to thrive again, because this is the year of God’s “Yes.” It’s gonna be a great year; so come with me and dream with Him!