Here is another dream from last year which continues to stir and provoke me. In our current situation as people of God we need to rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us in reaching out to others. This dream is like the title states about stepping out of your comfort zone:
I had been living in a society of purity, which had been cut off from the rest of the world.
We were a happy and content people. A canopy had extended over us hindering us from getting into the world.
Every now and then we would send red lanterns out or markers that were cuboid in shape with writing on and hang them on and around the countryside to show how far we had been able to go. They were being hung further and further away from the centre of the group. The canopy was being extended.
A man left us, a noble man, to go and see how far we could go into the country. I followed him. He went further then ever before into the world/country(side) (I say countryside as this was what it looked like. It was beautiful)
I lost him but found another people. I realised we were not alone. But these people were different to us. These people were downcast and heavily burdened judging by their faces. I sensed that they were bound by some inner impulse of lust. There were many of them trudging along. I lived among them. They were coming up from the coast and moving more in land. They were spreading out.
The dream had me in it like a type of every believer. It was strongly plural. Somewhat similar to my freedom dream.
Lanterns are used to light the way but they are two edged and have become places where we have camped and become settled. Red is for stop but the nobleman goes ahead he wants us to move on, to follow him.
Our faith is a faith of mission, of movement.
The message of the gospel is where we hide in the safety of God, like in church in his family and yet we settle and become comfortable. Yet the message is two edged. It causes us and calls us to move on, to reach out to those who are on the edge those who are from the exterior, like the people from the coastlands in the dream. Many of whom are moving in looking for something better but they’re not sure what until they find it.
We are people of God of the church. We have at times been settled in our comfort zone. Safe in our canopy but we are called to spread out with this message of hope the good news. To go to the people who are lost and driven by the wrong kind of motives, those motives that are the wrong kind of passion, the passion to satisfy only themselves. But the nobleman calls us to something higher. He is going to a far country and that far country is heaven.
I recently read something that sums up what I’m saying:
“The gospel has always provoked the church just as much as it has challenged the culture…We are a prayer-fuelled missionary movement, continually discomforted by the consequences of our own gospel“
Dirty Glory by Pete Grieg
The nobleman is key in the dream remember the connection to the distant country.
I refer to the nobleman in the dream and consider who he might be. He was tall, fair and had curly, wavy hair. This person has been in other dreams on and off his name means Yeshua, Yahweh saves. His other name means maker, an occupational name for a craftsperson. The other meaning for this person was one who is right, straight, an upright person. I think both meanings are intended.
When I first had the dream the sense about this man being noble was particularly strong. I looked up nobleman in the Bible. (I tend to relate my dreams to the Bible). I was surprised as the nobleman is clearly referenced in the following scriptures. That piqued my interest and has been crucial to the dream interpretation.
Now while they were listening to these things, he went on and told a parable, because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately. Therefore he said, “A certain nobleman traveled to a distant country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. And summoning ten of his own slaves, he gave them ten minas and said to them, ‘Do business ⌊until I come back⌋.’
Luke 19:11–13 (LEB)
The command (engage in business until I come back) describes an undefined duration of absence by the nobleman (Jesus). This fits with the time between Jesus’s ascension to heaven (24:50–53; Ac 1:9) and his eventual return (Ac 1:11).
Luke 19:12–13 CSB study Bible, Logos 8 Bible Software
Many believers neglect to focus on the kingdom as a present reality. Their concern centers on the future reality of getting to heaven—but this focus can easily sever the relationship between the Christian life and life here and now. When Jesus prayed, “May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10), He asked that God would bring the experience of heaven to earth. Through Jesus, God’s reign, rule, and power are available to us today, not just in the distant future. The present reality of the kingdom of God should prompt us to examine our lives and ask what areas we have not yet surrendered to God’s rule.
Luke 19:12–13 Faithlife study Bible, Logos 8 Bible Software
There was a sense that the dream was about going out into the world taking something of the purity of the ‘content society’ into that of those who were weighed down and not content.
The dream also conveyed that they were looking for their identity. We in the ‘content society’, the church have our identity in our leader who is leading us back into the world to bring awareness of his kingdom and the identity that he gives us as his imagers!
Last year I also had a picture whilst praying one morning, of two divers waving goodbye to their families and going into the sea with all their kit on. They were heading out to their ship. That ship represents mission. The people from the coastland reminded me of this.
There’s an interesting contrast in the dream the purity people are of the interior and the searching people are of the exterior (around the edges, the perimeter). We have a treasure within us which is in our interior both personally and corporately. Those who do not have this treasure live from the exterior.
You have had red markers in your life as you’ve pushed out into the world to do my mission. This is a new time though. As you follow me you will get right into the situation. You will begin to see through my eyes and know what is happening.
The red lanterns are the specific words that the Lord has given you, scriptures that you have been given as you have stepped out and trusted him. These are the reminders of how far you have come. This is a new time, follow me, listen to me watch what I do!
The people in the dream are lost that is why they are spreading out. They are trying to find what they’re looking for but they won’t until they have found me.