NIGHTMARES ILLICIT POWERFUL LESSONS

Last night I had a very strange experience. Through the night I had various scripture readings playing that I had made during our morning devotionals. These continue on an infinite loop, until they are shut off in the morning. So, you can imagine, it was quite strange that I had a nightmare that lasted nearly 5 hours, during which I was not sleeping, but drifting in a sort of daze until 4:45am. The nightmare centered around an antagonist which was like Jason Voorhees of the "Friday the 13th" movies which I have not seen since my early teen years. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this villain, he wore a hockey mask and slaughtered often drunken fornicating teenagers at Camp Crystal Lake. (That was the premise of the first one, the sequel and subsequent movies varied dramatically in the setting). The following link will take you to "Dreams of a Zombey" my dream diary, where you can read a detailed account of the dream...BE ADVISED, it is graphic and contains illicit imagery. 5 HOUR NIGHTMARE

First and foremost, the lesson that I learned is this: WE CAN CONTROL OUR DREAMS. Our dreams are not some frivolous ensemble of random memories from the day that we are mere observers of. Granted there are often symbols in the dream of things that our mind might be working through, events of the day, current concerns or even memories...but the mind is like a muscle, and the more that muscle is trained, the more our minds can form cohesive themes.

Second, and probably most important, the adversary can infiltrate our dreams by placing images, thoughts and suggestions, as well as scenes in our dreams to solicit us into situations to cause us question or doubt our walk with Christ. I have experienced this personally, on a number of occasions, and while I used to succumb to these before, because I have learned to control my dreams when they appear, I have been victorious over them by claiming Jesus Christ as Lord and the following scripture, 2 Corinthians 10:4-6, has been invaluable in these situations:

⁴ (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
⁵ Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
⁶ And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

Third, God can utilize our dreams to instruct us and test our resolve in certain matters. As with the above second mentioned point, what the adversary intends for evil, God can use for good. Now, I do not claim to be a dream interpreter, by any means, that ability belongs to God alone. However, if we are students of our dreams, that is looking for lessons and understanding the symbols of our dreams, we can learn a lot about ourselves. Often times I find the setting of a dream, the characters in a dream, or the theme of the dream itself to be familiar to me. Much like the elements of a story, these lend to the over all understanding of the dream.

In the dream last night, I woke with the following understanding: The adversary is always hunting me, I am courageous and willing to help others, I still have concerns about the way others view my walk with Jesus Christ, and when the way seems barred, always look for another way out. I also learned an important lesson about the enemy... often times he will distract you with an illusion of an attack while the whole time his intention is to keep your attention there so that you are not aware that he is attacking you in another way. My devotions this morning lend themselves to this understanding, and God's Holy Spirit confirms that He is always with me and that I am never tested above that which I can endure.