BOOTS AND A VISION WITH EYES OPEN

 

BOOTS AND A VISION WITH EYES OPEN

I’ve been working so much lately that when I sleep, I sleep so soundly that I hardly dream. When this happens, God shows me things in open visions instead. Numbers 24:4 tells us that the prophet Balaam said: “I see a vision from the Almighty, and my eyes are open.” The KJV says that Balaam “saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open.” The translators of the KJV let us know when they added phrases by putting them in italics. In this verse, “into a trance” was added, so don’t worry, you don’t have to be in a trance to see a vision from God. The translators are just trying to let us know that it’s a special spiritual moment.  

 

My vision involved boots. God showed me that the medical system we now have in America, and the educational system, the court system, and some other systems are like boots with lots of dirt clods in them. They needed to be turned upside down, dumping the dirt clods out so they could be clean again, and filled with better stuff. Then last week at work, when I was climbing around on the scaffolding, I felt a little bit of an awkwardness in my walking. I looked down, and my boot must have caught on something because all of a sudden, half the sole was loose. I had to climb around with a flapping sole the rest of the day.

 

When I asked God what this was all about, He told me that some of the dirt-filled boots I’d seen in the other vision had to be repaired, and some re-booted entirely! He told me that my soul and other people’s souls were tiring and getting worn out. Our souls were flapping and hanging down from the overload of dirt clods in the boots of the world around us. In the natural world, I went home that day, and I repaired my boot with some gorilla glue and duct tape, and it worked really well. Then on Friday, the general contractor had a bar-b-que for all of us workers, and there was a raffle. Guess who won something? Me! And guess what I won? A $50 gift certificate to the Boot Barn! So now I can go and buy myself some new work boots.

 

I love how God works with you and me. He just seems to love to show us things and tell us about the world in terms we can easily understand. I don’t have all the solutions for dumping and repairing those institutional boots that He was talking about, but I know He showed me they need it, so I can pray. I can pray for the apostolic ideas to drop to those who can carry out new ideas and new ways to make things work better for us.

 

God communicates in so many ways with us. I pray that some of you will be delighted like I always am with how unique His open visions can be and how really fun they are to receive.

 

Love, Carolyn

 

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WHY GOD USES DREAMS AND HOW TO INTERPRET THEM

 WHY GOD USES DREAMS AND HOW TO INTERPRET THEM

Job 33:14-18 tells us some amazing truths about why God speaks to us in dreams. In verse 14 He says: “For God may speak in one way, or in another, yet man does not perceive it.” That’s so true. How many times has the Lord tried to tell us what direction to go or give us an answer to prayer and we are too busy or too distracted and we miss the message? But God is very clever.

 

He’ll visit us when we’re napping or sleeping, when our bodies are trying to slow down and rest, and we’re in a more subconscious state. The Lord communicates with us, like it says in verse 15-16: “In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men, while slumbering on their beds. Then He open the ears of men, and seals their instruction.”

 

Why? “In order to turn man from his deed and conceal pride from man. He keeps back his soul from the pit and his life from perishing by the sword” (vv. 17-18). Everything the Lord does for us is to give us a wonderful life. So what this section of scripture is telling us is that He will try to get to us in any way He can, and since He already knows we sometimes don’t listen so well when we’re awake, He communicates with us while our body and soul take a rest. 

In studying what the Bible says about dreams and visions, I’ve seen that God either talks very directly, or He communicates with symbols. Proverbs 25:2 tells us: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.” We are those kings, as John tells us in Revelation 1:5-6: “Jesus Christ has made us kings and priests unto God.”

 

Both the clear dreams and the symbolic dreams are very intimate from God’s point of view, but the dreams with symbols require us to do some searching. Because we have to search for what the symbols mean, the journey necessarily requires a more intimate relationship with the Lord.

 

There are lots of books on interpreting dreams, but I never quite knew which ones were “right,” so I pretty much avoided them. Two books would interpret the same symbol in two different ways. Then I heard a Bible teaching on dreams that made sense as far as sources for symbol interpretation. They are:

 

 

One important thing, before we go looking up dream meanings, is to actually get some clear details on the dream. “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.” In this case, that would be us!  The dreams I remember are usually the ones I have right before I wake up in the morning. The other morning, I tried to remember my dream and it was amazing how much more became clear as I began to write the dream down.

 

So even as you write down the dream, the Holy Spirit will teach you some things about what the dream means. And remember that it is YOUR dream, so some items in the dream will be specific to you. For instance, “a cream-yellow car” for me would indicate the dream has something to do with my grandparents. If you had a cream-yellow car in your dream, you would not be thinking of my grandparents.

 

So, you start to look at the dream and if you aren’t exactly sure what God is trying to tell you, start with one of the main items in the dream. For example, let’s say you had a dream, and the main “characters” were two different kinds of chairs. You start by asking yourself questions about these chairs. What makes them different from each other? How do I feel about each of these chairs? Where are these chairs located? Who is going to sit in these chairs? When you finish asking your questions and answering them, then, since we believe this may be a message from God, we look up “chair” in a Concordance, like this one online: https://www.blueletterbible.org. We find the definitions for “chair” in both the Old Testament and the New.

 

It’s so awesome to look up the definitions of words used in the Bible. When you read the definition that is right for your dream, the Holy Spirit resonates with your heart and you know it’s the one that makes sense. Then you can look up chair in the Dictionary and the Holy Spirit will do the same with the definitions there.

 

I know this sounds fairly simple and it is. God doesn’t want it to be complicated. He wants you to get the message and He knows if you really want to receive it, you will do what it takes to find it out.

 

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter” (Prov. 25:2). The word “glory” means “abundance, riches, honor and splendor”. God wants us to have this glory and when we discover the meaning of some of those dream messages from the Lord, that’s exactly what happens.

 

Because I was an admitted dream skeptic, I wanted to be convinced that dreams were from God. I wanted to know they contained important messages from the Lord, not just a re-hash of my everyday circumstances. So I looked up multitudes of scriptures and records in the Bible on dreams and visions. In my next article, I will be sharing some of them with you. You’re going to be just as amazed as I was!

 

Love, Carolyn

NOT CAUGHT IN THE "SHOULDS" - HAPPY AND FREE

NOT CAUGHT IN “THE SHOULDS” – HAPPY AND FREE

I’ve been paying more attention to politics. I feel it’s a good thing to be aware of what’s going on, but awhile back, I was listening to a pastor who’s involved in politics, and I was overwhelmed by his list of “shoulds.” I “should” be more outspoken; I “should” learn how to debate; I “should,” I should,” I “should.” Then this morning, I heard from an old friend with the opposite viewpoint. This person went to Bible school with me 30 years ago, and knew me as a pastor, but today decided to authoritatively tell me I shouldn’t be posting political things and went on to respond to one of my Bible posts: “This is what you should be doing.”

What? I can’t be myself? Seriously? Who, all of a sudden, made this old friend, my boss? The Apostle Paul had a similar experience when he went to Corinth. Some of the believers were ragging on him because of what he ate, and because he maybe wanted to go on a date: “Mine answer to them that do examine me is this, ^‘Have we not power to eat and to drink? Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles, and as the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?’” (1 Cor. 9:3-5).

Our daily authority comes from God and God alone, except, of course, when we choose to put ourselves under another person’s authority, like in a work situation, or in a spiritual situation, where we ask specifically for someone’s opinion.

But if we let ourselves be easily swayed by other’s ideas of what they think we should be doing, we may easily fall prey to what it says in Ephesians 4:14. We go back to being like children. And it says in that verse: “Be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” Our standard is the Bible and what the Lord gives by revelation on a daily basis. If we don’t check with the Lord, we can even be fooled by old standards we still have in our heads, which may not be the Lord’s will in the situation. Kind David fell into that trap. David got tricked by the “shoulds.”

King Saul of Israel was coming after David to kill him, so David found refuge with the Philistines. They gave him a whole city, Ziklag, where he brought his wives, children, his men, and his wealth. But then there was going to be a war between Israel and the Philistines. David felt that he “should” get involved in the fight. He took his men and stayed in the back, close to the man who befriended him—Achish, the Philistine King’s son. But while David and his men were away, intending to do what they thought they “should” be doing, another enemy went after David’s own city, Ziklag.

Even though David wanted to be involved, and his Philistine friend, Achish, thought it was a good idea, the other Philistine leaders weren’t receptive to David. They didn’t trust him and didn’t want him there, so “David and his men rose up early to depart in the morning to return” (1 Sam. 29:11).

“And it came to pass when David and his men were come to Ziklag, that the Amalekites had invaded, and smitten Ziklag, and burned it with fire; And had taken the women captives, that were therein: they slew not any, either great or small, but carried them away, and went on their way.

“So David and his men came to the city, and, behold, it was burned with fire; and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, were taken captives. Then David and the people that were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep” (1 Sam. 30:1-4).

Because David had stepped into the land of the “shoulds,” he wasn’t walking in the light of what the Lord really wanted him to be doing. The consequences were devastating, but not a total loss. David hadn’t intentionally disobeyed God, so the Lord made a way for him to recover his losses. He went after the Amalekites.

“And David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away, and David rescued his two wives. And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil nor any thing that they had taken to them: David recovered all” (1 Sam. 30:18-19).

It would take some time to rebuild the burned city, but at least no one was killed, and they got back their form of income in the goods that were stolen. Thank God the goods went with them because if they had been left in Ziklag, they would have been destroyed in the fire. In God’s foresight, He knew that David had made an error in judgment, but not in heart. And if in our hearts we truly want to always do His will, He will find a way to always provide for us, even when we mess up.

When things in our world present themselves, and we get emotionally upset about them, we tend to want to do something about them, and that’s good. But wisdom, it says in God’s Word, is the principal thing, and wisdom comes from God. We don’t want to be tricked liked David into taking action on something just because of some false feeling of responsibility or obligation. The “shoulds” can be tricky.

Let’s not get caught in the “shoulds” in any category. David felt he “should” go to war on the side of the Philistines, but it wasn’t what God wanted him to do. What we may feel are obligations, we need to periodically check it out with the Lord, just to make sure we’re doing it because God wants it, not because we got it in our heads that we “should” be doing it.

Following the Lord, detail by detail, is a joy, and an ever-changing adventure. The “shoulds” tend to confine us, but following the Lord is freedom. Galatians 5:1 says it beautifully: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

Love, Carolyn

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THE SHEPHERD

  

THE SHEPHERD

While living in South Africa, I visited a family in Lesotho. As we drove through the crusty desert hills toward their village, I saw a lone shepherd walking by the roadside with his meager flock. To my surprise, this shepherd’s flock consisted of a couple of sheep, a goat, and a donkey. I always thought shepherds only had sheep, so this sighting was remarkable for me. But there was more to it. In the few minutes that I watched him out the car window, I was overwhelmed by what God showed me. I could feel this man’s life. As he walked along the dusty road, many miles away from the village, I knew this little group of animals meant everything to him. They were his lifeblood, around which his whole world existed.

Yesterday I was reminded that in Biblical times, the shepherd slept with his flock. He never left off from being with them and caring for them. That’s why Jesus can say in John 10:27: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” The sheep would recognize the shepherd’s voice because the shepherd lived with them every day, 24/7. The shepherd ate with them, walked with them, slept with them.

He was there when they got uppity; he was there when they got sick; he was there when they had their babies, when they had a bad day. He lived with them and knew every one of them and cared about each one of their peculiarities, and he deeply loved each one of them. Any of you who have multiple pets know that they all have different personalities, and you know you love them all.

So it was natural that they would recognize his voice because he was always right there with them.

I’ve been realizing lately that many things that are normal things in the Bible, have not become normal in our lives. For instance, there are more occasions of people seeing and having conversations with angels, and more said about it, than there is about speaking in tongues. And speaking in a God-given prayer and power language is pretty darn amazing!

If we look at the Bible events with open eyes, we can see that angelic visits are the Bible normal. Healing is the Bible normal. Tremendous victories are the Bible normal. I think we might need to become more normal, according to what is stated in the Bible, don’t you? After all, it is God’s manual for life, spiritually-infused life, that is. And we all can use a bit more, or a lot more of that spiritually infused awesomely victorious life, right?

The next time we pick up the Bible, how about looking at what we’re reading and ask ourselves: “Is there something in this story that should be normal for me? The things that are Biblically normal, hey, I want them. How about you?

One place we can start is with the shepherd, Jesus. Intellectually we know that He’s with us. But it’s time to take additional steps in our relationship with Him: It’s called CONVERSATION. When we want to get to know someone better, we ask questions. Then we listen to the answer, and if we don’t quite get it, we ask more questions, or ask them to say it in a different way, so that we understand. Sometimes we even repeat it back, just to make sure we got it right. We do that with people, but we don’t often do that with the Lord.

Questions like: “Is there something you want to show me today?” “Why is that important?” “What could I do for you today?” “Is there something I could be doing differently?” You will have your own questions.

Think of questions you might ask of a new acquaintance. “What do you do for a living?” “How about your family?” “What kind of music do you like?” “Are you here for business or for fun?” “Know any good jokes?” (Jesus does have a good sense of humor, in case you didn’t know). It could get really personal and really interesting, really fast, don’t you think?

This week, let’s make an effort to get to know our shepherd’s voice better than we do today. He’s with us all day and all night, so let’s make conversation with Him so darn normal.

Love, Carolyn

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A BRIEF PEEK AT GRIEF

A BRIEF PEEK AT GRIEF

We changed our TV service and can only watch movies now. My roommate, Jane, said: “Carolyn, I gotta tell you, I’m really having a problem with this. I miss not being able to watch baseball.” At that moment, I realized that the loss of anything is like the death of it, and as long as we live on this earth, there’s going to be grief that comes with any loss. Over these months of the COVID virus, we’ve all experienced some form of loss.

To try to ignore the grief is just as wrong as letting ourselves get trapped in it. It’s better to face the loss head-on and admit to it. Different emotional reactions will surface, and we have to let them happen. Then when we can, we move on.

Grieving is a universal phenomenon. There are plenty of studies on sorrow and grief, but there’s still much to be learned about how it works, how long it takes, and the effects it has. The one thing we do know is that it’s a process, and it varies with situations and people.

We can see from the Bible different examples of the grieving process. Signs of grief we find in the Bible include tearing one’s robe, putting dust and ashes into the hair and leaving it a mess, shaving the hair or beard, wearing black, removing jewelry, neglecting physical hygiene, fasting, and wearing sackcloth. Sackcloth was made of goat or camel hair and was course and uncomfortable. One Bible dictionary said that men were generally more silent in grief and women more vocal and demonstrative.

These were things that exhibited in ancient times, but the grieving process hasn’t really changed much over the years. Just one example I can think of is female friends who’ve done something to change the style or color of their hair after a divorce or break-up. I don’t know if it’s even a conscious decision or just part of the inward, inherent grief reaction.

In the Bible, the days of mourning also varied. In the case of Jacob, it was 70 days (Gen. 50:3). In Saul’s case, only 7 days (1 Sam. 31:13). In Moses’ time, the official period of grief was 30 days.

When Moses died and the allowable 30 days were over, God told Joshua it was time for him to get up and get going. I think that a lot of times we need someone with insight to help us get going too, to wake us up out of our grief, and get us to move on before the sorrow destroys us or makes us morose.

I know I needed a push when my dog Spike passed away. I was so sad I couldn’t see getting a new dog and had convinced myself that I couldn’t get one because of the cat. My friend Miki kept pestering me with pictures of rescue dogs that needed homes, and I kept pushing the idea away. Then, my roommate, Jane, rescued a dog from the alleyway. We made two failed attempts at giving him away and finally got the message: “Keep the dog!” And of course, we love him like crazy now. He pulled me out of my depression. My time of grief was supposed to be over, and God was working through insightful people, forcing me to move on.

When God pushed Joshua out of his grief, it was by a new thing for him. Moses had died, and now Joshua had the responsibility to lead God’s people. I’m sure it was a little intimidating. Any time we have to embrace something new, after losing something we love, it’s hard. But we don’t have to do it alone. God told Joshua, “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9).

When we lose loved ones, our homes, our jobs, our favorite restaurants, our TV, or any other thing, it’s perfectly normal to grieve those things. We shouldn’t deny ourselves some portion of grieving. It’s shows true character to willingly face a loss head-on. Then talk about it with the Lord. He already knows, but it helps us to voice what we’re feeling. After that, we have two choices: 1. giving up and regressing to old bad habits, or 2. we recognize that the Lord is with us in our wilderness and He will lead us out. The first choice may seem like the easiest, and it may be, but the second choice is definitely the best and will bring us to new beginnings, and God will not disappoint.

Love, Carolyn

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DON'T BE AFRAID TO FAIL - GOD IS FAITHFUL TO A HUMBLE HEART

DON’T BE AFRAID TO FAIL - GOD IS FAITHFUL TO A HUMBLE HEART

I remember the day when I discovered I was totally okay with my own failure. After three days of trying to make a piece of Masonite look like a piece of maple, I’d run out of ideas. I’d completed hundreds of wood samples that looked great, so I was shocked with myself when I realized I just could not do this one. I had to admit failure, and the result was surprisingly wonderful! In that moment, I was totally set free. I did fail, and I was actually happy for myself. Odd, yes, and yet this was a deliverance for me! I was very prideful growing up. Failure was never an option. I was good at almost anything I tried, and I avoided activities I couldn’t do well. No one really likes the idea of failing. But sometimes it can be a good thing – a lifesaver, actually.

Though I’d accepted Jesus as my Lord and confessed my sins, pride kept popping up in other categories. It’s funny how God can use the most mundane things in our lives to show us the most important spiritual things we will ever experience. This incident with the wood sample was one of those things.

Many of you have experienced similar awakenings. We go along in our regular life, no real “Las Vegas” moments to speak of, no bells and whistles, just plodding along, and all of a sudden we’re doing something we normally do, and God opens an amazing realization about a very big thing in our lives that we never expected.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that if we are faithful to seek God and read His life manual, the Bible, He is faithful to us, to reward us with revelations, insights, and deliverances that we not only wanted but some we didn’t even know we wanted! A preacher once said: “God can make taking out the garbage the most exciting thing you’ve ever experienced.” I‘ve found this to be absolutely true.

The key on our part is to be faithful to Him. Jesus tells us a parable in Matthew 25 about a man going to a far country who gives his goods to his servants to take care of while he was away. 

“And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several [own] ability; and straightway took his journey. Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents.

“And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money.

“After a long time, the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them.

“And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, ‘Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.’ His lord said unto him, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.’

“He also that had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them’. His lord said unto him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.’

“Then he which had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine.’

“His lord answered and said unto him, ‘Thou wicked and slothful servant’” (Matt. 25:15-24).

The servant that received one talent was afraid of failure. He didn’t even try, didn’t risk anything, didn’t step out in faith to gain anything more. He buried what he had. He reminds me of Christians who stop reading the Bible, stop praying, stop exploring and questing after more of the Lord’s intimacy in their lives. They bury their desire for Him or get snared by fear that it might not work, or they may look foolish even trying.

In the above parable, the two servants who were faithful to do more with what they had, were the ones who were brave enough to step out. And look what the Lord told them: “Enter into the joy of thy Lord.”

As Christians, we are still human, and we are going to fail sometimes. But failure isn’t a crime. “As it is written, ‘There is none righteous, no, not one’” (Rom. 3:10).

We were failures when we came to Jesus the first time and admitted we weren’t very good at being our own Lord. Don’t be afraid of being a failure at something. It’s worth a try.

We must pick ourselves up when we fall and continue to seek the Lord’s guidance. Let’s be like David, who said to God: “Unto thee lift I up mine eyes” (Ps. 123:1).

Humility is a sweet smell to our God. And pride is a stinker. Shut it down by going back to the scriptures with a humble heart for truth.

God is faithful to us. “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations” (Deut. 7:9).

In the New Testament, the Lord promises: “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). And God keeps His promises.

Love, Carolyn

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Out fo the office - see you Sunday :-)