Help Us to Dream
Your
Dreams oh
Lord!
Your
Dreams oh
Lord!
I experienced a most unusual kind of breakthrough a few months ago when I was struggling to catch my breath during a bout of covid. I had asked for prayer the day before because of dark thoughts that were difficult to push out of my mind. Early the next morning, in between awake and sleep, I saw a troubling seen. In my mind's eye, I saw the shores of Normandy back in WW 2 during the storming of Normandy. I knew there was a lot of death on the beach but my sight of vision was above the bodies. Somehow I knew I was not just a bystander, I was on the beach, in the spirit.
Holy Spirit was singing over me: "Take one step after another, one step after another, one step after another until you take out the top guns." After I joined in the song a few rounds, I realized I was being nudged by Holy Spirit to get out of my sick bed and force myself to move around. So I did as long as my energy level could handle it. I returned to bed until the song and scene came back. Again and again throughout the day it mustered my courage to get up and force myself to move around whether I felt like it our not. By the end of the day my breathing was almost back to normal. I was making a remarkable recovery just by forcing myself to take the next step of obedience to help my physical body recover. The scene changed in my minds eye as the day progressed and I saw an enormous army in every direction, North, South, East and West as far as the eye could see, I saw no end it it in any direction. I was part of it and we all had the same very simple marching orders that kept us all in step, "One step after another...". Locked arm-in-arm by the elbows, nothing could get by us, the bullets somehow didn't seem to harm us, we didn't miss a step, we were all in perfect unity. I intuitively knew I was seeing God's people on earth joining ranks with all the patriarchs and lovers of Jesus through the ages as well as angel armies that were interspersed between us. Somehow through the prayers of heaven, those who have gone before us were physically joining our ranks. We were making a sweep of the place and none of us were falling down or missing a step. When we got to the top guns several days later in my minds-eye, the angels totally destroyed them, and we just keep going on step at a time. This vision returns to me often, especially when I am tempted to willfully refuse the "next step" or get focused on the "steps" another christian might be "missing." It helps me to stay on track, get re-focused on the task on hand, pray for the christian that might be stumbling and trust Christ the Captain to help them get back in step. Later in that first day, I saw that at the head of this army was the shape of a spear-head consisting of God the Father (Yahweh), God the Son (Yahshua) and Holy Spirit. A prophecy came to mind from another unusual place in scripture- "she is as the dance of two armies." Song of Songs 6:13. God is raising up an army of believers on earth joining through their prayers and "the righteous deeds of the saints" have learned how to partner with heaven's army so that God's kingdom advance will bring about the greatest harvest of souls, the greatest advances in every sphere of influence not by "domination" but by inspiration. By being light and salt, living by God's principles with weapons of love, prophecies fueling our prayer and our faith, partnering with heavenly hosts the prayers of the saints since Genesis chapter 4 are coming to pass in us, despite our unworthiness. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," is about to be seen in greater dimensions than we ever dared to imagine. Dutch Sheet's has heard the Lord call this time and season, "the synergy of the ages." I was seeing it in action through this vision and I began to understand that my call is simply to obey the "next thing" Holy Spirit leads me to do. I see this vision frequently when we meet for weekly prayer for our church, community and country's influence on the world. When I or another see it during our prayer time we pray into it and get even greater insight. One prayer warrior, Pam, saw how easy it must be to stay in step because of the great length of each row helping to hold us all in place. We can't lose, we are emboldened and strengthened by the support of each other. As Kevin Zadai often remarks, "This whole thing is rigged in our favor, we can't mess it up. We win. Nothing can stop us." Instinctively I know the top guns represents the "fiery darts" of the enemy uses in his attempts to distract or dissuade us from this advance of God's kingdom on earth. This massive army linked arm-in-arm embolden our faith every time we think of it. While not everyone in the body of Christ is awake enough to join this army yet, I know their day is coming soon. If necessary God will jolt them awake in His way, in His timing. My job is to keep my eyes and ears perked for the next step of faith He calls me to take. Today it means awakening much earlier than usual to finish sharing the vision in this blog. We don't need the over all battle plan or even need to know what the next "dart" from the enemy will look like. If we see a dart coming our way, the powerful weapons of prayer and our shield of faith is sufficient to extinguish the dart. Even at its worst the dart destroys by body, nothing can harm my Spirit destined for eternity with Messiah. This vision has become one of the many shields of faith that deflect those darts and can keep me from getting distracted from taking the next step. Not every step is easy, we need His grace, but our life is much simpler when we focus on simply the next step. I spent many years complicating things but not anymore! No regrets, no shame, no false guilt, just the next step. We ALWAYS have grace sufficient for the next act of obedience. When we choose to be "willing" to take the next step, He empowers it to be successful. As I write I sense Him reminding us that His grace IS sufficient. His supernatural power to equip us IS still alive and active and as we speak His word it MUST bring life and light. As my former Pastor Thom often said, "light can't help but push out darkness" even in the midst of a weak faith to believe it to be so. His word ALWAYS accomplishes what it was sent out to do- save, heal and deliver. He promised in His word that His plan for us is "exceedingly abundantly more than we could think or ask." We really have no clue what his abundance will look like on the "other side" of the next step we take. It really doesn't matter. He is altogether good, worthy of our trust and IS the head of this army after all. We ALL need His grace and mercy to keep us ALL in step but He CAN handle this. So we can choose surrendering our plans for today or the future one step a a time. This is a volunteer army but the riches and rewards of following One who gave it ALL up for us gives us the courage to say "yes". On the last day of pass-over, April 17th, I received confirmation to share this message in this blog today. It came from a very unexpected place. My sister had told me how radically the book, "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ" by Anne Catherine Emmerich helped lead her to have a greater reliance on the atoning work of Jesus as she read of her vissions of Christ's passion through the eyes of Canoness Emmerich. I had a nudge to start reading her first chapter on the final night of pass-over week, Saturday April 17th. Living in Germany Canoness Emmerich lived from 1774-1824. A Canoness lives in a convent but either chooses not to make a permanent vow or is not allowed to make that vow due to the lack of family financial support to do so. Yet Anne remained with the Augustinian convent until her death. The book is a compilation of her various prophetic visions and dreams that she or others wrote down on her behalf when at time she was unable to write due to the intensity of those visions. Though I can't attest that every dream and vision this lover of Jesus had is from the Lord, her humble re-telling of something I also saw, helped me see how people of very different theological persuasions living centuries apart can be changed forever by a similar vision. First she recounted what temptations the devil was pouring out before Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. The vision that struck me hardest was the streams of rebellious, idolatrous, ungrateful and lazy christians many of us would become. We were indifferent to his sufferings and took his suffering lightly. As Jesus saw how recklessly we would disregard His bloody sacrifice, Jesus began to sweat blood and asked for "the cup to be taken away, yet not His will but Thine be done," was His final response to His Father during these bitter temptations to walk away from the cross. Then something changed in the countenance of the Savior that gave Jesus an even greater resolve to take His next step towards the cross. Here is how she retells the vision: "The army of the future saints passed before the soul of our Lord, which was thus placed between the desiring patriarchs, and the triumphant band of the future blessed, and these two armies joining together, and completing one another, so to speak, surrounded the loving Heart of our Saviour as with a crown of victory....As these visions referred to the future, they were diffused to a certain height in the air." In the previous paragraph she describes the patriarchs also intermixed in these two armies: "The apostles, disciples, virgins, and holy women, the martyrs, confessors, hermits, popes, and bishops, and large bands of religious of both sexes-in one word, the entire army of the blessed-appeared before him.... Their whole life, and all their actions, merits and power as well as all the glory of their triumph, came solely from their union with the merits of Jesus Christ." I am humbled when I think Yahshua was strengthened in His hour of greatest need by the same vision that strengthened Canoness Anne Catherine Emmerich 1800 years later in a dark night of her soul then 200 years later in one of my darkest hours. Imagine if you can the reality of this. Yahshua, the God Man was strengthened in His resolve to complete His "next" step towards Calvary by the triumphant church who knew who they were and how to partner with heaven to form a mighty army "that the gates of hell could not prevail against". We are that generation. We get the privilege to advance God's kingdom on earth to fulfill the prayer Yahshua taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come they will be done on earth as it is in heaven. " Our Savior's victory is our victory and our victories are His victories. He is our inheritance and we are His. This remains hard to comprehend, yet because His word says it, we must take Him at His word. I am humbled at the privilege to take this next step of obedience by posting this vision and leave the results to the ONE who heads this army and will lead others to this blog in His perfect timing.
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