Prophetic Dreams

In our Wednesday Aglow meeting, we listened to Dutch Sheets talking about prophetic dreams. He said that God speaks to people in all sorts of ways, including through dreams.

I’m not sure whether it was his dream or someone else’s.  In this dream, he and a friend went to Colorado where there was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. They followed a path to get to the door. It went through an alley and someone told them not to go through the alley because it was full of jackals. They turned to walk around the building in the opposite direction. They had to cross a corn field. They were cutting a new path, a path that led to a harvest. 

The ways we used to do church don’t work any more, he said. It’s like an old wineskin. We need to forge ahead making new paths. We need to be careful to listen to the Holy Spirit and follow His leading.We are heading into harvest.

A second dream featured a room, big enough to seat 5,000 people. Dutch and his friend were dressed in hospital scrubs. There was an air of expectancy about the place.  It was a place where births took place, not of babies but of ministries, miracles and signs and wonders. There were angels constantly bringing works to birth. It was a season for laying on of hands and seeing people move into the destiny God had planned for them. It was a “hem of the garment” season where people would touch us, unplanned, and we would impart to them transformation. We would simply shake another person’s hand and they would be changed. The earth, he said, has never before seen what is coming.  God is working to bring about a harvest.

That was those dreams. Stirring, aren’t they?

My dream last night was all about making soup. Joe and I were making soup. It could have been lentil soup. It was orange in colour. Someone tipped the pan over and we had to start again. We made the second batch and drove to an airport. The security guard would not let us through unless he got to taste the soup. It was delicious and he called his mates over and, between them, they finished off the soup. We started on a third batch and decided to make lots of it, enough to feed lots of people. We had offers of help and set people to choppng vegetables.  Piles of chopped vegetables covered every flat surface, the roofs of buildings, windowsills and door lintels. I was worried because I knew that the soup had to have a secret ingredient. There was a boy, a syringe and a blue car involved somewhere.

Prophetic? Maybe. It’s not an obvious meaning. According to one dream interpretation website – “Soup is a symbol of health, fitness and nourishment.”

Making soup in large quantities reminds me of the soup and sandwich Sunday evenings at the Manna House se used to partner in. It was an outreach project led by a local church group to meet the needs of people the Street Pastors met on a Friday or Saturday night. The soup and sandwich deal came with a Bible discussion and a time of prayer. Health, fitness and nourishment isn’t just for the body. It's for the soul too. Sunday nights were placed on hold with Covid-19.

Maybe making soup in such large quantities, enough to feed a lot of people, is a heart’s desire to meet the spiritual needs of people, to help them connect with God. He meets all needs. In Him we are made whole and we flourish. 

Perhaps in the early weeks of the lockdown, although we were not out and about, there was a sense that we were being looked after by neighbours. There was a keen sense of compassion. We applauded the NHS workers for the sacrifices they were making. A whole host of people signed on to help wherever they could. People looked after each other, and, yes, the virus was still the enemy, but there was a bright side to it. That was then, at the start and few a number of weeks. I;m not so sure that the community spirit is still thriving.

Is my soup dream prophetic? Maybe it is. How do I bring spiritual health, fitness and nourishment from a dream into the real world? We are all called to do church differently now, outside church walls. I think I start small. With the church family that God has placed me. I share what I know about spiritual health and fitness. I nourish them with what I learn as I study the word. Nourished, they and I head out into the world to speak wholeness to a broken world. We tell them. We live it.