Dreams of the Rapture

Acts 2:17 says that in the last days, God will pour out His Spirit upon his children and they shall prophecy, have visions and dream dreams.  Early Sunday Morning, I had a dream.

The Middle Eastern sands were hot beneath my feet as I fled a horrible dragon and assorted demons.  I was fleeing for my life when instead of me, the dragon captured the Lord Jesus.  The dragon bound the Lord about the waist with a metal cable which he tied to his tail.  I watched in horror as the dragon  began to smash the Lord Jesus into the ground, into ships, and into buildings.  I cried out to the Lord to stop the torture, that the body of Christ could not take much more.

Smaug the Dragon - The Hobbit

I ran waist high into the sea, that was calm and cool.  Above me, I heard a mighty trumpet and the skies opened.  All around me, spirits began to rise from the waters and I remember thinking - oh yeah, the dead in Christ shall arise first and then, I knew that the Rapture was happening.  The blessed hope, the greatest miracle since Creation was upon us and I was caught up into the clouds.

It does not take an interpreter to see the meaning behind the dream, the time is short.  

Waiting on the Due Date

Very Pregnant Lady

Abigail and Dolley readers I've been contemplating Birth Pangs and waiting on the Lord.  I've written about this for years; from a plaintive cry in May 2011, to Warning Signs in 2013, to the Convergence of Signs in Sept 2014.  I was hit anew with the realization that the labor pains are coming fast and furious now.  Anyone who has ever eagerly awaited the birth of a child knows what this feels like, the waiting is long.

From the moment of conception, it becomes a hope.  As the baby takes root and the test results are positive, the loved ones and the expectant mother celebrate the happy news.  They settle in to wait.  They plan, they shop, they decorate, they visit the doctors to check on the signs but most of all they wait and wait and wait...  For the Fathers it does not really seem real, for Mothers it is real because we can feel it, we live with it, and waddle with it every day!

Toward the end, rounding the last corner, the final month I thought I would be pregnant forever!  I was bed ridden and grumpy; I was huge and swollen without a definitive due date.  The baby measured much larger than he should have at the first ultrasound so we were not sure if he was due at the end of April or the end of May!  It was terrible - we knew there was a baby coming but we just did not know when.

Because of this ambiguity, the anxiety level began to peak.  This picture was at the end of April, after 6 weeks of bed rest.  I started to lose it contemplating another month.  I cried to my Dad, I just could not stand the thought!  He calmed me down and told me to relax and take it one day at a time.  I remember being irritated at him about that advise!

Finally, they set a date.  In the days leading up the appointment, I was exhilarated that the wait was over but nervous.  Each day it got closer, each day was a new realization that the wait was finally over but it still wasn't quite real.  Driving to the hospital was almost surreal...

What I described is exactly what the Body of Christ is going through now.  We know He is coming, we've been waiting a long time.  The signs are here, the birth pangs are upon us, we just aren't quite sure when the due date is!  We are on bed rest, sick, swollen, and miserable and the thought of going through this indefinitely is just more than we can take.

When I began to study the Festivals, the moedim, the divine appointments it struck my Spirit that God has set the appointment already.  In the fabric of time, from the foundation of the world, the appointment was set we just have to stay strong and take my Dad's advise - one day at a time.

Lessons on Waiting From Sarah

Abigail and Dolley readers in the first grade, my teacher wrote on my report card that I was a bright student and a sweet girl but that I needed to learn patience with others.  It was a Christian School and I have no doubt that those words were given to her by the Holy Spirit.  God loves and disciplines His children and apparently this was an area He felt I needed to work on the most!  From that moment on, He began to put people and situations in my life that would develop patience.

Four decades later, I am still learning.  My idea of a patient person is one who is patient in all things, who waits in serenity and peace, and who casts cares upon the Lord with nonchalance.  The question becomes does such a person really exist or are we patient by degrees or in certain situations?  If utter paragons of patience are at one end of the spectrum and toddlers (both physical and spiritual) are at the other, where might you fall?  Further, are there some situations/people where your patience is inexhaustible but others where you fly off the handle at the least little thing?

What about long term desires and unfulfilled dreams?  I like to use Sarah as my model for patience in the Bible.  I identify with her.  We always focus on the fact that she waited 25 years for the promise of the Lord to come true but we do not consider that she had always been childless, that the longing and wishing for a child went well beyond 25 years.  I am sure there were many months she cried with every show of blood and then for years she dealt with the pain of an unfulfilled dream and desire.

Sarah Laughed

On a certain level, it seems harsh for the Lord to reveal to such a woman that she would bear a child and then ask her to wait.  Would we speak less of the miracle of Isaac if it had occurred when she was 75?  Or was the Lord making doubly sure that He got the credit and was He using Sarah to show us that if He promises something, He will eventually do it?  Did she suffer so 4000 years later we would still be talking about it and looking to her as an example of how to abide but also how not to abide? Is she also a model of what not to do when your long awaited dream comes true?  For by the Biblical accounts, she did not behave very well after Isaac was born.

It can be a scary place, out here in the deep with the Lord.  I am certain that people scoffed at her, laughed at her dream, and caused her to question that she had really heard from the Lord.  Sarah laughed herself when the Lord told Abraham she would give him a son.  I do not judge her too harshly, as someone who has had to wait upon the Lord for decades, I understand.