Dream 219 – Jesus, Vision from Him or Personal Imagination
Received Thursday, October 27, 2016
I am so thankful today for all of you, my family, and of course Jesus! Every day, I pinch myself as I cannot believe how much my life has changed in just a few short years.
In the last 60 days, we have endured troubles of every kind coming against our household. It has reached a point where it is almost comical and I wake up and say, “Okay, Lord, what is coming against us today?” Yes, somehow, all of these troubles have helped me reflect on different parts of my walk, really race, with the Lord…
Part 1: The Race – Sustenance and Endurance
I used to endure attacks prior to writing my dreams and visions. These came because I was running to God. I wanted to know Jesus in a deeper way and I sought Him. In the beginning, the enemy was doing everything in his power to keep me from Jesus.
So, why was this allowed by God? Simple! God wanted to see just how far I was willing to go, really the full distance, on this difficult path. This beginning was to see what my endurance race capacity was. After continuing on my race, and since no matter what the enemy tried kept me from going to Him, the enemy then began a different method of attack.
Part 2: The Detours – Distractions and Discouraging Turns
After I had proved to God that I was willing to continue on this race, I was then faced with even more difficult portions of the path. This meant I had to trust and obey God even when not knowing where He was taking me on the race.
The enemy tried everything to distract me and the list was long. There was my injury, the battles with the enemy, court battles, cancer scares, infighting with co-workers, family and friends, problems with my children, moving a long distance, accusations, lies, personal defamation, the death of my mom and so much loss…
This portion of the journey involved me running each day on a good path. Then, and out of nowhere, something even worse than the last day would come up and I would have to go a different direction based completely on God’s directions. It was all a series of the race that I call a “Blind Run”.
This portion of time in where I learned to hear God say, “No Erin, this is the Way, walk in this!’ (Isaiah 30:21, Psalm 32:8 & John 14:6) I was dealing with insurmountable trouble and all kinds of tactics and weaponry were being used against me by the blacksmith.
I was really starting to wonder if I was even worthy of God’s Call. This portion was so painful that it filled me with many tears. However, it also somehow filled me with an even deeper appreciation of God. In continuing on my race, God then began to trust me with even more. However, the enemy then began to come at me with yet a different method of attack…
Part 3: The Finish – Greater Rewards with God
I had done all of what God had required of me…or so I thought! I had stayed my course. I had remained focused on Jesus even when I had seen unspeakable trouble coming. The dreams and visions the Lord has given me have become incredibly detailed, making what I had in the beginning look almost cartoon-like in comparison.
On the bright side, and counter to all of the attacks, when He gave me the miracle of clearer dreams and visions, He has also miraculously healed my eyesight at the same time! This is truly remarkable as I had not even asked for this, but God knew what I needed before I even asked.
I thought that, with the launching of this new site, the Nest, and our announcement of my recent marriage, finally everything would be perfect and I could skip down the path on my final length of my race. Okay…”NOT”!! There is no skipping here, at least not quite yet.
So I asked Jesus some tough questions: “Lord, we are newlyweds here, so can we just have a time of bonding aside from all of this trouble? Could we have at least some joy prior to the times of trouble? Lord? Lord, are You there? We are too old for all of this. Hello, SparrowCloud rant here!”
Smiles…..
After my ‘rant’, the Lord gave me a vision of a cutting board and reminded me of when I was in an 8th grade wood shop class via a vision / memory recall. Now, to seasoned wood workers, I am sure there are better ways to make walnut cutting boards, but this, mind you, is how the Lord showed me what we had done from my personal 8th grade experience.
When making our cutting boards, we used several layers of wood drilled with holes. Each strip of wood had three holes. There were a total of about fifteen strips of wood with each about one inch thick. The eighteen inch dowels were used to thread the wood. Glue was used in between each strip of wood.
Then these massive table mounted vise-grips were used to shore up the adhesion of the wood. Though this was from years ago, I still remember that this took at least three days as we did not have any fast drying wood glue available.
When the shop teacher was certain that the wood was adhered and that the glue had dried, we then took the wood blocks and ran them through a planer to make sure the blocks were plumbed and even. We then cut off the dowels to make them even with the blocks.
We then spent several days sanding the surface. After this, the blocks were finished with a wax-like coating to bring out the luster of the wood. Some were varnished and some waxed.
After this vision / memory recall, the Lord then asked me to look up the meaning of ‘lamination’. So, this is what I found…
Lamination is the technique of manufacturing a material in multiple layers so that the composite material achieves improved strength, stability, sound insulation, appearance or other properties from the use of differing materials. A laminate is a permanently assembled object by heat (similar to our trials), pressure (similar to the world), welding (similar to the tools of the blacksmith) and/or adhesives (similar to ‘God Bonding Strength’!).
After jotting this down, I was then unexpectedly brought into His presence for a quick conversation and lesson on that He had just shown me…
Jesus: “Erin, I have heard your cries. When gluing something together, it does not bond immediately, right? Instead, it needs time to bond and, only then, does it becomes a permanent adhesion capable of standing up to all types of situations.
“This vision of the cutting board and the process used is similar to that of your household. Running through all of these pieces of wood are the Father, the Son and the Counselor I have sent, the Holy Spirit.
“The bond is the time between the joining of your family. Now I have created the ‘Bond’ and the ‘Adhesion’. That which is ‘Bonded’ through Me cannot be separated. There is a process. I have not taken you this far on your race to now set up a path which goes nowhere.”
Me: “You are brilliant, Lord. I needed this encouragement as it seems the attacks occur now right after I write my visions and dreams down. Why are You allowing this?”
Jesus: “Erin, you are experiencing what is common to man, but even more for you now as you have turned the enemy’s attentions to what I am revealing. Because of Me, you hold the enemy’s interest.
“The clock is ticking, time is passing and the enemy has seen the writing on the wall. While you are hated and attacked, I also send help in advance of this. Before you cry out, I answer and You know I Am God.
“Now, this is the portion of the race in which the enemy tries to pull you back from the finish line. The enemy will call you back to where you were a prisoner and a slave. He sheds light on your old bridges or stirs up your past. He yells out to you to cause you to stop you in your tracks. He calls out to discourage you.
“Now, what did I show you recently? What did you learn?”
Me: “It was awful and I am so mad at myself. You gave me the same vision three times this last weekend. However, they were short visions and I was not certain if it was a vision from You or my fears lending itself to my imagination.”
Jesus: “So, what was it?”
Me: “It was a vision from You, but I failed to see it because the circumstances were not typical for a vision. It was a warning from you that I missed and I paid dearly for it. Well, we paid dearly because I failed to act on what You showed me. It has been an awful week of worry with no end in sight.”
Jesus: “In this length of your race, I am giving you even more. This means I am calling you up for even greater service. Now, I have appointed watchmen on your walls. I will also grant you increase, but you must understand that, like others before you, there will not always be situations where you will have a pen and paper in hand.
“There will be times when I will say to you, ‘Go here, Go there, Yes, No, Not now’ and even more, but this is when you must fully trust Me when I send signs like this. Now I will deliver you from this trouble, but I allowed this as a lesson to instruct you in the ways you should go.
“Your remaining enemies are institutions. These have no heart, no pulse and no foundation built on God, so you must allow Me to govern them and flip tables.” He smiled.
“You are unable to stand against these. You must play by their rules until I take you another direction and deliver you from them. This time is soon to come, but, in the meantime, you must know who ultimately controls them and allows their current ability to cause trouble.”
Me: “I am sorry, Lord, but how will I know when it is You giving me a vision versus my imagination?”
Jesus: “Well, let us start with how many times in succession you were given it?”
Me: “Three times.”
Jesus: “Very good. Then, with this, what else did you experience?”
Me: “I felt it in my head first, then in my chest and then, finally, in my belly.”
Jesus: “So it made you feel like you needed to act on this, yet you did not?”
Me: “I thought it was just worry?”
Jesus: “Hmm, yet you even ignored that which made you worry?” He smiled and laughed. “Erin, why would you do such a thing?”
Me: “I thought You would deliver me from this and there would be no cause for worry.”
Jesus: “This reminds Me of the parable of the man during the flood, Erin. This is a difficult lesson. What did you finally learn from it?” He smiled and laughed.
Me: “That You have changed up how You are communicating with me. I am excited for this, yet I did not like what happened. Please do not allow this to happen again, Lord.”
Jesus: Laughing. “Yes, Erin, okay, but how about you listen or, better yet, when you receive these visions, just ask Me. You can say it out loud or you can say it under your breath. I will answer when you ask, but you must ask.”
Lesson over…for today. Okay, it was a very difficult lesson though.
Times are about to get interesting soon. What I see coming actually reminds me of when I came upon an accident a long time ago and before I was even a Christian. When I came over to help at this accident, I somehow knew just what to do. While I was not sure about this before, I now know that this was God guiding me.
In comparison, the person I was driving with and a person trained for just these types of things, suddenly became frozen in his tracks. Somehow this person had no ability to do what I was somehow doing. The difference seemed to be that God chose to use me in a surprising way, but God chose to allow this other person, the one more capable, to be frozen in fear.
Later, after the ambulances came and went, I talked with this person about all that happened as I could barely recall what I had just done. However, he remembered everything and saw that people were treating me as if I had years of training on this.
He told me I was able to keep a man who may have potentially become paralyzed to stay still and calm in order to help prevent possible damage to his spine. This was all while we were in quite a severe snowstorm and this man was also bleeding a lot.
It seemed like the enemy had successfully stopped the one more capable from helping, effectively freezing him in his tracks. However, God then side stepped the enemy’s plan by using the one less expected and the one not even capable or trained to help.
The point of all this is that it just shows that those of us to soon be called into service who feel inferior and unlikely to be called may be just the ones God chooses. In contrast, the ones that we think will rise up the most just may be the ones that may surprise us by not performing when the heat is turned up.
The Lord is not a respecter of position, but rather sees us for exactly who each of us are! What it really comes down to is that this is usually a heart issue as He continually searches each of our hearts!
Anyway, I hope this encourages all of you. He is doing more with all of us in this last length of the race and will be ramping this up soon. Now, how long this portion of the race will be, I really have no idea.
May God bless each of you with abundance. Many of you are struggling in so many ways and I am praying for miracles as I believe God is about to do something really incredible with us!
I am ready to work! I feel that I am now ready to be a ‘Worker’ in His army. Hopefully and prayerfully, I will be a worker alongside with so many of you here that I call my friends!
Much Love and Many Blessings
Erin
Previous Dream: http://sparrowcloud9.com/heaven-dreams-interpretations/the-tribulation/excerpt-from-dreams-questions-answered/full-dreams/dream-218/
Copyright© 2012-2030 SparrowCloud9; Erin Aleshire (All rights reserved, copies only allowed as per written permission)