Read Online Seeing the Voice of God: What God Is Telling You through Dreams and Visions by Laura Harris Smith - Free Book Online
Authors: Laura Harris Smith
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Wallage showed up and have never left. And interestingly enough, they came home to us on a Thanksgiving weekend.
That incubation dream had both prepared us for being approached to pastor the church and sustained us until everyone in the dream was standing by our side to do it. Fay also became the prayer captain for this book you hold in your hands.
5. Apocalyptic Dreams
If apocalyptic dreams were a punctuation mark, they would be an asterisk * because they are only explained at the end of the story.
Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Zephaniah and Habakkuk all have proven track records of propheticaccuracy when it comes to world events, but they also all have predictions yet to be fulfilled because they deal with the final days of judgment or the end of the world. I can just imagine these men all sitting around the dinner table in heaven and keeping score right now. When yet another dream or vision comes to pass, they high-five and then slide another bead across the prophetic abacus.
Moses’ 3,500-year-old “regathering of Israel” prophecy from Deuteronomy 30:3–5 is materializing before our very eyes, defining what it means to be alive in a prophetic time. Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus setting up a millennial Kingdom in Jerusalem is about 2,800 years old, and I am sure Isaiah is on the edge of his seat, just counting down the days for its fulfillment (see Isaiah 2:4). I wonder if Jeremiah is lamenting and crying over his currently developing prophecies. Hang on, Jeremiah!
I have never personally had any apocalyptic dreams, which is sort of a joke in our family. With all the teaching Mom does on prophecy, and with the number of prophetic dreams I have on a regular basis for myself and others, I have never once dreamed of the rapture, tribulation or anything else eschatological. I feel my prophetic dreams are more practical than mystical, which works well for me since I do a tremendous amount of pastoral counseling every week. But sometimes my mouth waters as I sit and listen to my family tell their dreams of being caught up into the clouds with Christ, or of seeing the events described in Scripture about the heavenly signs that herald the end of the world, such as the moon or stars doing crazy, impossible things.
The Other Side
Remember my waterfall dream at the start of chapter 1? Can you guess which of the ten prophetic dream categories it fallsinto? And what about Chris’ sensible interpretation that calmed my hysteria? Was it correct? Most important, how was my relationship with God after the dream different from before?
The truth is, it is possible for a prophetic dream to be several categories rolled into one, as that dream was. It was an audible, encouraging, warning, waking dream. I was encouraged that God was affirming the leap of faith we had just taken and that He was telling me a great autumn was coming, but I also soberly knew this was most likely a warning of a difficult summer. And that time was indeed difficult—financially and reputationally—due to the repercussions of our decision. We had made the big leap of faith in January and were still on the high from that when the dream came a month later. While a dream at that time about a coming great fall season was good news, when the hard summer actually hit, it was great news.
Now I see the pattern of how the Lord does this for me. He does not give me scary dreams about impending doom. He gives me positive dreams on the front end to see me through a coming trial. Not that I do not have alarming dreams, but they are pure warning dreams and calls to pray. If I do my job well, the calamity will rarely hit. If for some reason it still comes, I have hope because God has already shown me the other side.
And we did get to the other side. That artist management company we tried starting with musicians, actors, painters, dancers, photographers and other artisans never amounted to anything because it was not supposed to. The name
That incubation dream had both prepared us for being approached to pastor the church and sustained us until everyone in the dream was standing by our side to do it. Fay also became the prayer captain for this book you hold in your hands.
5. Apocalyptic Dreams
If apocalyptic dreams were a punctuation mark, they would be an asterisk * because they are only explained at the end of the story.
Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Zephaniah and Habakkuk all have proven track records of propheticaccuracy when it comes to world events, but they also all have predictions yet to be fulfilled because they deal with the final days of judgment or the end of the world. I can just imagine these men all sitting around the dinner table in heaven and keeping score right now. When yet another dream or vision comes to pass, they high-five and then slide another bead across the prophetic abacus.
Moses’ 3,500-year-old “regathering of Israel” prophecy from Deuteronomy 30:3–5 is materializing before our very eyes, defining what it means to be alive in a prophetic time. Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus setting up a millennial Kingdom in Jerusalem is about 2,800 years old, and I am sure Isaiah is on the edge of his seat, just counting down the days for its fulfillment (see Isaiah 2:4). I wonder if Jeremiah is lamenting and crying over his currently developing prophecies. Hang on, Jeremiah!
I have never personally had any apocalyptic dreams, which is sort of a joke in our family. With all the teaching Mom does on prophecy, and with the number of prophetic dreams I have on a regular basis for myself and others, I have never once dreamed of the rapture, tribulation or anything else eschatological. I feel my prophetic dreams are more practical than mystical, which works well for me since I do a tremendous amount of pastoral counseling every week. But sometimes my mouth waters as I sit and listen to my family tell their dreams of being caught up into the clouds with Christ, or of seeing the events described in Scripture about the heavenly signs that herald the end of the world, such as the moon or stars doing crazy, impossible things.
The Other Side
Remember my waterfall dream at the start of chapter 1? Can you guess which of the ten prophetic dream categories it fallsinto? And what about Chris’ sensible interpretation that calmed my hysteria? Was it correct? Most important, how was my relationship with God after the dream different from before?
The truth is, it is possible for a prophetic dream to be several categories rolled into one, as that dream was. It was an audible, encouraging, warning, waking dream. I was encouraged that God was affirming the leap of faith we had just taken and that He was telling me a great autumn was coming, but I also soberly knew this was most likely a warning of a difficult summer. And that time was indeed difficult—financially and reputationally—due to the repercussions of our decision. We had made the big leap of faith in January and were still on the high from that when the dream came a month later. While a dream at that time about a coming great fall season was good news, when the hard summer actually hit, it was great news.
Now I see the pattern of how the Lord does this for me. He does not give me scary dreams about impending doom. He gives me positive dreams on the front end to see me through a coming trial. Not that I do not have alarming dreams, but they are pure warning dreams and calls to pray. If I do my job well, the calamity will rarely hit. If for some reason it still comes, I have hope because God has already shown me the other side.
And we did get to the other side. That artist management company we tried starting with musicians, actors, painters, dancers, photographers and other artisans never amounted to anything because it was not supposed to. The name
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