(Edited by sister Cheryl Lowe.)
Tim asked me to review one of my dreams. I don’t remember much of the details. What I do remember is that it was a very intense dream, and prompted me to call on many that I knew at the time to come together to pray for Israel. The group continued on and became like a home fellowship.
If you read this, please bear in mind that there are sequences and details in the dream that I really can’t accurately recall. In order for it to be a bit more cohesive I patched up the story line here and there, with minimal alteration, of course.
The First Scene
In the dream, I drove up to visit the home of an elderly woman who was the mother of a friend of mine. (In reality, I was a homeless person at the time and never before had owned a car or had a household.) She was having a family gathering of some sort. As I parked my car in the front yard, I saw that many people had already gathered in her house. It seemed that I had never visited the home before, but that I had only heard about the place. Being a bit late, I wanted to get inside as soon as possible. Suddenly a medium sized black dog came out of nowhere and began to attack me. It took hold of the ring finger on my right hand. I pushed it, kicked at it, and threw it around, in order to get it off. But it just would not let go. Finally people from inside the house rushed out, with the elderly woman as well. She managed to get the dog away from me.
My friend complained to his mom. But as the party was going on, he withdrew to let her take care of me. She took me inside and put some bandage on my now severely damaged finger. I sensed that her heart was not really in it, as she did it very hastily. I knew that it would not suffice. Not wanting to bother anyone, I left the wound as it was and began to walk around in the house. The party was now really under way, and there were people inside and out of the house everywhere. It was so packed that I could hardly move around. Suddenly, out of nowhere, my two older brothers showed up. Noticing that I was in pain, they asked me how I was doing. I told them what had happened and showed them my wound. The bandage was now almost falling off, so it was not hard to unwrap. When they saw it, my big brother, who was a doctor by profession, said something to this effect: that the care I had received certainly would not do, and that I needed to go to the hospital right away. I hesitated, not wanting to ruin the party. But they insisted and each came alongside me, grabbing my arms, and almost dragged me out.
The Second Scene
We were quickly translated into another place, and were now in an elevator of a hospital. I intuitively knew that we were supposed to go to somewhere on the 8th floor. As we rode up, the elevator stopped at the third or fourth floor. A man, dressed like a common looking middle-aged middle eastern man came in. The door closed behind him, he moved to a corner of the elevator, and again we rode on. Just as soon as we took off, the man began to attack me without reason. He acted like a wild beast, preying on me with no restraint. I was somehow able to ward off his attacks, which were very forceful and violent. It was as if something was holding him back from being able to harm me. While I was fighting him, I could detect the thoughts of my two brothers who stood aside. Obviously they were astonished with what was happening before their eyes. The man’s vicious look and beast-like manner really stunned them and they didn’t know how to respond.
Aware of the man’s erratic behavior, I mustered myself to take the initiative, thinking that I might be able to talk some sense into him. So I spoke aloud to him: “Stop! Let’s talk about this! ” On hearing my loud voice, the man, as if subdued, paused his attack. He shook his head, as if he had just come out of a dream. I don’t remember what I said to him, or if I ever spoke anything to him. He had now somehow come to his senses, and realized his mad behavior. He was a bit apologetic and felt ashamed of what he had just done. My brothers were a bit surprised again that this wild scene could be stopped as easily as this.
Just at that moment, suddenly the elevator door were broken open. Two other middle eastern men cracked the elevator door and broke in. (I really can not recall what their clothing looked like now. They were each dressed differently, but all in middle eastern clothing. They looked like the modern day Arab people, or people from that region.) Obviously, they came to “inspect” how the “mission” had been carried out, and were quite upset upon finding out that their man had stopped attacking me. At the nodding of one and with his inquisitive and stern look, (somehow in my dream, I detected that he was the one who had plotted the whole thing), the other man began to yell at the first man whom I had subdued, urging him to resume his attack, while he himself began to jump on me as well. The first man, funny to say this, but it was as if he quickly yielded to the “peer pressure” and began to attack me again. As soon as he decided to do so, his demeanor yet again changed. He became even more vicious than before. At this point, as I was looking for some help, I was surprised to find out that my two big brothers were gone. I did not know when they left. With no time to waste, I began to fight back. Somehow, it became much easier to do so, even though I had to face two men now. Strangely, the other man, (evidently their leader) was never involved in the actual struggle. He just gave orders through his looks and motions.
Now they would not even stop at my shout for them to talk this out. As I continued to fight back, the whole thing became like a mechanic motions. Only at a later point, the second man somehow stood beside their “commander,” watching the one who attacked me from the start continue to do so. As terrible as the fight was, a surreal peace presided in me, knowing that whatever they did would not harm me.
At the urge of his peers, the man’s attack began to intensify. At one point, his face morphed into an ugly face of a dog. Facing his vicious attacks, somehow, out of nowhere, I found myself standing at the corner of the elevator with a baseball bat in my hand. With the confidence and the precision of a good player, I would hit the dog’s (with a human body) forehead again and again, and each time he would be beaten back and then resume his pounces.
It seemed this would last for quite some time. Yet the elevator had resumed climbing, and I knew in my heart that this would end soon and that I would be able to get to the 8th floor. At that point the dream ended.
Reflections and Impressions:
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I woke up in the middle of the night after I had this dream. The intensity of it made me pray to God for understanding, assuming that it had some application to my own life. After some struggles, I heard the Lord explain to me that the dream wasn’t merely about my life, but that it was more about the nation of Israel. The Lord revealed to me (some of the details now become quite blurry) of the identity of the three men. Their leader was Iran, the other man was Syria, and the one who was commissioned or assigned to attack me was either Hezbollah, or Hamas, or both.
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He told me that He would have a season of my life to personify the fate of Israel. (Just to offer some context, I was a fairly “new believer” at the time, knew very little about, and had very little interest in Israel. At the time, the idea that my own life could be used to personify what God had ordained for a nation certainly was out of the scope of my understanding.
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I remembered that I was put into great struggle after the revelation, because the Lord then urged me to call on a list of people to gather together to pray for Israel. He even revealed to me ahead of time of their responses and heart attitudes toward such a thing. I had to plead that He postpone it to the next morning (which was a Thursday), rather than having me do it in the middle of the night. To my amazement, later interactions with others showed exactly what had been revealed to me ahead of time. Some evidently felt that it was strange, even futile, that I should call a gathering to pray for Israel. It certainly taught me a good lesson on how to hear and follow God.
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As I now reflect on the dream. It reminded me of the greatness of Sonship we have in Christ Jesus from God our Father, which is a new understanding. Two portions of scriptures came to me: one is the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-31. The other is the promise God gave to those who were assigned to rebuild His House as in Haggai 2:20-23.
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As I reflect more on the ones who acted as my enemies, I am reminded that the dream might have a broader application as well. That the woman (mother of my friend) is the church in the Church Age. The fact that there was no father figure in the home of my friend’s family is very telling. And my two brothers, I suspect, are of the kind of apostolic and prophetic streams of Christianity that I happened to have encountered in past. They knew the problem and seemingly also knew the solution, but were not able to provide any real help in terms of the restoration of Sonship.
