(Edited by sister Cheryl Lowe.)
I had a very interesting dream or vision today. I have often had such experiences while resting…
A Place of Refuge
I am looking down at the plant Earth from somewhere up above. The whole world is covered in darkness. It seems that a great destructive force is sweeping over the planet. I can sense the hopelessness and confusion of the people caught in it. There is nowhere to escape. This only comes to me as an understanding.
My eyes are drawn to an interesting object. I see an invisible dome shielding a spacious place. It rises up into half of the air between heaven and earth, and carves out a very peaceful and lively sphere inside. I am curious what this place is. Then as if someone is talking to me, I hear or understand that the name of this place is called “Refuge”. I actually saw it in written form in front me.
Life in a University
Suddenly I come into the dome. There are many people living there. The place now strangely transforms itself into a campus. I know that all who are there are busy with going to different classes. They are all eager to learn the things of God. I don’t see any teacher however. My impression is that everyone is a student.
Partaking of Food
Now it is time to eat. Strangely, the classrooms are now changed into a cafeteria of some kind. It is hard for me to detect the differences, as some of the details of this dream are blurry for me. In a vision while I am in the dream, I can see from above, still in the dome, that many are going back and forth between the two buildings. They are quite a long distance apart. My impression is that they are the only buildings under the dome, leaving the spacious grounds full of people busily walking in between.
Storing Food
It appears that I am one of the students, and have my own dorm room as well. But I am a stranger to most if not all of them. I am not certain if anyone else shares the dorm room that I am in. It seems that it is kept for my own use while other students are packed in different dorm rooms. Many are walking around thru doors and the corridor. Strangely, they would evade entering my place, even though apparently there nothing is there to stop them. There is a passage just thru the middle my dorm room that makes an easy shortcut for the curved corridor. (Details of the setup of the dorms are blurry to me now. In the dream I could not pay attention to things around me because I was busy with other things…)
Some cupboards and a refrigerator sit in the back of my room. I find myself busy stacking up all kinds of choice foods. The cupboards are so full that they literally have no room left. I don’t exactly know what foods I put inside. Now as I am writing this, I think that they might be different kinds of grains. Then I am putting different kinds of meat into the refrigerator. They pile high up to the top, leaving only a little room left as well. Something is strange about the source of this whole collection of foods. No one has fetched them for me. They seem to be just coming out of the empty air whenever I reach for them.
While busy with this, some thoughts go thru my mind. With the doors open and where everyone can see what I am doing, I am a bit concerned that others would use the food without good purpose or proper asking. And then, I am troubled in heart for being selfish and over concerned. Then an understanding comes to me, as if someone is explaining it, that these foods are somehow meant to be kept from others. An invisible shield is setup by 3-4 beings around my dorm room. I can’t see them. My invisible companion tells me that they have been stationed around my dorm room for this very purpose. As I look up, I am surprised to see that no ceiling or roof is over my dorm room at all. I can detect one or two of these beings, (angels- they must be). They have been holding something like a tent over my place. Until this is revealed to me, I never knew that they were there and have been faithfully performing their duty all this time. I feel surprised.
Other students come and go, busy with their lives. None of them could see these invisible ones. It seems that they either do not care about what I am doing or they can’t see. At this point I realize that there are no walls around my dorm room either. So I am a bit confused by their lack of reaction, and wonder why they can’t see…
Cooking
At the front side of my dorm room, opposite to the storage place across the passage, is the kitchen. There is a simple stove, and some cooking items there.
It looks like I am quite a good cook. Every time I make a meal, I will go with a new recipe. But this has somehow spoiled my appetite. As I keep on eating these new and delicious foods, a dissatisfaction comes to me. How I long to pair it with some Chinese wine, like the good old days! This lack of appetite actually dulls my day and my senses, because all I do during the day is to handle foods, stack them up, and then cook them. It becomes more like a routine. (Strangely, unlike the others, I never go to the cafeteria or the classrooms while I am living there on campus.)
I begin to daydream about my favorite brand of wine from San Xi, but I know that I am now far away from home and that my life is set at this place. A sadness comes to me. It appears that no wine is allowed on the campus. That means that for the rest of my life I will never have a taste of wine anymore. What a pity!
Wine from Home
Then a messenger from somewhere above the dome comes to visit me. (It seems that I was standing at the same place as I had been at the start of my dream now.) He causes quite a stir among the residents. It seems that seldom does anyone from the outside ever come into the dome. Now I can’t recall his exact appearance anymore. He seems to be a very strong person, like a great warrior. But he is very amiable to me, keen to humbly and honorably carry out his mission. I can feel his joy and detect his wisdom as he attends to his business with me.
He presents to me two green bottles of wine. They are exactly the kind I have been craving for! How I rejoice to see the name on the label. Simple as the packaging appears, for me as a lover of wine, it is the best in the world! The wine has such a thickness and sweetness to it that a sip would flare up all of my senses. And certainly it is great for my appetite.
The messenger, with a refined and obviously deep affection, shares that they are a gift from my second brother. While he continues to share with me other matters of business, in a vision I see my father and my brother together. They were discussing how to send greetings and instructions to me, so that I can further attend their business where I am. They rejoiced in me and were amused by my recent little temper because of my love of wine. A good laugh broke out when my brother said that he would like to surprise me with a “special gift”.
Then I see that the messenger was attentively listening to my brother while standing on the road a distance away from the gate of our estate, a cluster of mansions in the heavens. My brother had accompanied him all the way to explain to him further of my father’s intentions and plans. But that was not the real reason. He wanted to see the messenger off as far as he could because it was his way showing his great affection towards me. I can only guess that he might also want his servant to understand who I am in the heart of the Father and Himself. In the end, he produced the wines to the messenger. With a good laugh he jokingly shared with him that I had been craving for such a thing. With great care he passed on the bottles as if he wanted to make sure that they would be safely delivered. Evidently there were many other things that are more important and useful for this visit. But as if he already knew that they would be well taken care of, my brother paid more attention and gave more time to show the messenger how to present the wines as his token of love to me.
As I am writing this, how tears again fill my eyes! How tender is our Lord’s love towards us, how beautiful is His affection towards his brothers! It is so pure, so deep, so all encompassing! His indeed is perfect love! And what a wonderful translation! Now I can see and know more clearly the wonder and the goodness of His brotherly love. Only He is able to express perfectly of the Father’s love into His brotherly love. He is indeed the perfect image of the Father, the exact representation of His love! What a mystery! Yet what a simple truth!
Standing in the middle of my place, with the bottles in my hands, knowing that my kind messenger is equally overwhelmed by the revelation of such a love, quietly I begin to give thanks to my father and my brother for the love, the trust, and the care that they give me.
My messenger, a mighty man though he is, stands with me in adoration. He appears to be unusually solemn, evidently amazed, like a little child, by something so new and so wonderful.
Eph 3:14-19: For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Romans 8:31-39: What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Impressions and Understandings
- The dome, or the place called “Refuge”, is the God’s Kingdom on earth where His people are shielded from the destruction of the Enemy.
- I think the destruction is what I shared before as the time of troubles. It is also mentioned by the Lord in Matthew 24, as the “troubles are yet to come”.
- The university represents the state of God’s people on earth or His church. The dorm rooms represent our dwelling places in God or His Kingdom. The cafeteria or classrooms speak of the spiritual provision for His people. The seeking of food in between the two places speaks of the distance (gap) of the learning and being that many are caught in. Simply put, it represents the lesser way of God’s people in obtaining spiritual knowledge. Something like what Paul shared: “Always learning, yet never attaining unto knowledge”…
- The dorm room that I am in, covered by angels, I think is a token of God’s presence (spiritual provision and dwelling place) on earth. The angels, as I asked for an answer, might be cherubim that are hovering over (covering) the Ark. The cooking and partaking of food there is the picture of the spiritual training designed for His Priesthood of our time. It is not yet allowed to be revealed to others. But in due time, it will.
- There are three kinds of food or substances: (1) Grains, that will be made into bread- this is the ministry that was showed to me by Melchizedek in another dream, representing what is needed for one to mature into Sonship in Christ. (2) The meats, representing the portion from the Father as the ministry of the Word of Righteousness, a symbol of inheritance for His Son Servants. (3) Wine is symbolic of the joy and celebration that is yet to come- might be designating a time of the feast of the Lord in our midst. Only with wine can one prepare a feast to invite others as his guests. It will be the coming of the true “bridal age”.
- Two bottles of wine represents the double portion for the Church, as indicated in Isaiah 61, speaking of the restoration of God’s people on the earth. There will be an earthly fulfillment in our time.
- The messenger, most possibly an arch-angel, is a servant for sons of God in our age to deliver God’s mystery to us like in Daniel’s time. It might be a representation of the Holy Spirit Himself. I need more clarity on this.
- The real mystery is the love of God (Father’s Love) in and thru His Son (Brotherly Love). About this life, wisdom and ministry of the Love of God, much will continue to be revealed and brought into reality by the Power and Goodness of God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I pray that I would be one of the blessed recipients of this Mystery and this Love. The Son is the Way for anyone to become “just like Him” in Oneness with the Father. His teaching or spiritual provision is the Living Word of God.
