This is a dream which I believe is from God, and the interpretation He gave me. Please feel free to share honestly whether you feel the Holy Spirit telling you I am mistaken or that I’ve heard rightly. God’s words are pure, but I’m practicing and it’s possible for me to hear wrong. This is somewhat long–sorry. I’ll try to shorten up at least my description of the dream. This message is for the church. Feel free to read if you are not yet a believer, but keep in mind that you’re not being addressed or censured in any way. Note: the house appears to refer first to the traditional church structure, and later, to the worldly portion of the lives of Christians.
Setting: An old Victorian style house decorated in black & white–attractive at one time, but now cluttered with mounds and mounds of stuff (not stinking garbage, but things which are, or have been, useful and valuable). There’s so much stuff that movement in the house is impeded and there’s no place to sit or even lean against a wall. There is no wiring, though people have made some attempt at installing outlets. There is no power source. There is no food.
Caste: At first there are lots of people in the house–fellow believers–then people begin to leave to find food. Soon it is only my husband and me, and then he leaves, too. I am expecting the others back, but I’ve been left to establish that this is our house. Kind of like saving a picnic table, I suppose. It was raining outside.
Impression: I was unsure that we were even supposed to be in this house, and whether God wanted us to take it over, or how we should go about establishing ownership if He wanted us to.
I asked: Lord, what does this mean?
You’ve been brought into this house by your common experience. The old house was made of the materials available at the time–it is empty and I have no desire to occupy it. As you see, there are piles and piles of things made by man. There is no room for Me and no provision for My power to flow through these old walls. There is no nourishment–no sustenance here. You will have to leave the house to find that. No place to sit down and rest, because of all the piles and piles of old things–things lovingly created by men. All things made by men–not at My command–end up this way–wood, hay, and stubble. Take this body out of this old house. This has never been My house, although I occupied it for a time as a visitor, a stranger, a guest at times wanted, other times ignored or rejected.
You are to BE the house, not dwell in it. Get rid of all the stuff by leaving it behind. Go out of the house and be soaked by the rain.
Come together in the open field and BE the house–My temple. This is not a house made with hands, but a house unlike any you are familiar with. Come together and let me build you up. Let go of your own plans and notions and all–ALL–of your precious stuff, and I will build you up, a covenant people–saturated with My love. This will be a house like none you have ever seen–a house that is really a body, through which My power flows, and which I will sustain with My blood that will course through each of you as you each perform the function for which I designed you. Wait on Me, and I will empower you and knit you together in love. As a body–My body, you will express Me. As a bride–My bride, you will delight Me and be delighted by Me and be one with Me. As a house, My house, you will contain Me and be My dwelling place–the place of rest and repose–the seat of My creativity, the place where My heart finds peace.
You are My people. Leave this old, dead house and come out into My rain. Don’t seek shelter on your own, or I will not be your shelter.
Seek Me, and I will begin to build you together into shelter for one another and for My Holy Spirit. Then you will be one as We are one. You will be one with Us, and the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will go forth and cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.
I said: Lord, I don’t understand how to do this. What is “our precious stuff”? How do we let go of it? I thought we had done this already. Please help me–I don’t understand what it is we’re supposed to let go of.
Come together to celebrate beauty. Come together to behold My Son. Come together to heal one another’s wounds–for if one is wounded, all are. (And you do not have the right to hide your hurts from one another, because your wounds are not yours alone–they drain and deplete the whole body. Would it be right to conceal a hemorrhage that will eventually drain the body of blood? Wounds must be bound up and healed. It is NOT loving to spare your brothers and sisters by concealing your pain. Your pain is theirs as their pain is also yours.)
I said: Okay, so one thing we need to let go of is our precious self-sufficiency–our pride in not burdening each other with our troubles–our image that we present to the world–our public persona?
Yes–you need to surrender “your space.” You also need to confess your sins–your besetting and continual sins–to one another.
(note: besetting sins are sins that you can’t seem to stop doing–everyone has these weaknesses, though they will differ from person to person)
A virus cannot be contained in one body part. It will spread. What is more, no individual body part has the power to heal itself. This is another pride issue. You do not want to confess that you cannot overcome your own weaknesses, or that you are not perfect in yourselves.
Beyond this, you need to surrender your expectations. You come together expecting certain things–most particularly a sense of My presence. I may test you for a time–to strengthen you–with a famine of the senses. You may eat and not feel nourished. Be assured that I am always among you whether you sense Me or not. Thus it is essential that you know Me. I am teaching you to trust Me, like a parent teaching a baby by playing peek-a-boo shows the baby that closing her eyes doesn’t mean the parent has gone away. Trust is not based on the senses, but on true knowledge of and oneness with Me.
Surrender also your “shyness,” your tendency to hold back–almost always–again–out of pride. Fear of being wrong; fear of being rejected; fear of being perceived as a show-off; fear of being perceived as a threat; fear of being perceived as anything unfavorable. If you remain silent, it is often fear of exposing yourself to the hurt of some form of rejection–or it is because you have nothing to offer.
You need to let go of the stuff that clutters your day to day life and leaves no room for Me. You need to step out of that house into My rain. Die to your old life. No one can travel to a new place without leaving the old place behind. No one can follow Me unless He is continually forsaking all of his own stuff to make room for Me to fill all in all. When My light comes in, it illuminates every corner with the clutter and piles of precious stuff. Just leave. Open the door and leave–I am the door. Leave all this behind and don’t look back. Shut the door and come out of that dusty old house into My green pastures, bright sunlight, healing rain, morning dew, and evening splendor.
No man, clinging to his own, old stuff, can ever come into posession of all that I have for him. Let go, child, and take My hand instead. Then you will have living water and bread of life to share when you come together in My name.
What more can I say? God is calling us clearly to separate from not only the world, but also from the worldly practices in our own lives and in our churches. I’m for dancing in the rain of His amazing Holy Spirit.
Love, Cindy
July 17, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Good afternoon. There’s so much encouragement here that I’ve had to make a paper copy; just to revisit it during the course of the next few days. The call to refreshing and closeness; a deeper place in the Lord and a letting go of the hindrances is an incredible thing. Last night I found myself thinking about seasons and prayed “Lord there’s something fascinating; something incredibly fascinating beyond our wildest comprehension, about timings and how you bring us into different seasons of growth and knowledge of you.”
It’s been on my heart for months on end; this desire to let go of the hindrances, and, as is described here, step into the rain. To have such a hunger and thirst for the Lord that we not only let go of every weight and sin, we will, as it were, “cast them aside forcefully.”
Something here that really hit me was the understanding of how dangerous it is to cling to a facade of independence. That hanging onto attitudes is just like hanging onto physical vestments.
There’s so much here that my quick comment is woefully inadequate. This post is a much needed piece of encouragement. Thank you.
Blessings always in Jesus name.
timbob
July 17, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Thanks for your encouragement, Timbob. God is so good–He comes up with stuff I’d never think of–like this dream. I was already interpreting it in my mind before I took the time to pray over it and ask God. I was so far off I wasn’t even in the ballpark.
I’m so blessed that this spoke to you.
July 17, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Praying for courage to step out of the house…praying to be caught in the rain!
July 17, 2009 at 9:09 pm
God gives the courage, and if you’re asking, you’ll receive. I think He probably even graciously gives us the desire. Ours is to respond. He is so good.
Be blessed.
July 18, 2009 at 8:17 am
Cindy, what I got out of your dream when I read the first part of the post is this: the church has been full of programs, rituals, and traditions – they have been quite useful in the past. However, there is a real need for the church to just take the pure word of God and study it without all the bells and whistles that people are selling to teach the bible and make a few bucks in the process. The word of God is richer than any teaching ever could be. Like I said, those things have had their place, but if you look at the fruit of what it is now producing out of the churches, the result is alot of lukewarm people who are being tossed and swayed by the way the wind of our culture is blowing. We can’t possibly stand on all of the teachings, programs, and rituals that are out there, but we can stand on the Rock, who is the WORD. In your dream, the people leave looking for food. The Word of God is spiritual food. The people in the house were not being fed the spiritual food of the Word of God. This all goes back to the fact that many churches are so focused on programs, budgets, growing the church, etc., that they aren’t actually being fed properly with the Word of God. Or like my husband says, “Too much fluff, and not enough stuff”. Anyhow, that’s what my first reaction to reading your dream was. Maybe it’s just me, but pray about it. The interpretation you received was also very interesting as well…some good stuff in there too. Sorry this is such a long comment, LOL!
July 18, 2009 at 8:23 am
I hope that last comment didn’t come across the wrong way…I am not trying to dismiss what you wrote, because it is very good, just adding a possible angle that I see in your dream.
July 18, 2009 at 10:57 am
Hi, Ali
No–don’t feel bad. You’re right. I didn’t expand on the idea of the nourishment, but yes, that is the meaning of the symbol for me as well. The nourishment is always the word of God.
We always have to have the Holy Spirit teaching us, even when reading straight from the bible–even if we’re scholars of the original languages. You and I have both seen men who can build a false doctrine using nothing but the written scriptures.
God also speaks to us in ways beyond the scriptures. Dreams and visions come to mind; the exhortation of brethren (sometimes this will be written down in a book, etc.); the still small voice. Likewise, all these require much discernment in the hearer, and they must be in agreement with the scriptures.
Another thing I failed to unfold was the meaning for me of the people going out to find food. In the traditional church, we come in to receive food prepared for us by professional clergy. In simple church, each one must bring something. We bring a dish for the common (physical) meal, and we also need to bring spiritual food to share–the things God has been saying/doing in our lives through the week.
Thanks for contributing, Ali. I really appreciate the discussion. You’ve brought out some important points.
Love, Cindy