Last night I went from dream to dream all night, each one vivid enough to wake me up. There was a theme from dream to dream which was trouble. I like to use troubling dreams as a chance to say thank you to God for something so did a lot of thanking God in the awake times too. Here’s the highlights.
Dream 1 I was a high school kid and a group of families came over to visit our house. The house was enormous but as this teenager I was more focussed on the grown woman that came in and was flirting with me. She snuck off upstairs to meet me and I went up a different set of stairs. The two places didn’t connect and we never met thankfully. But I walked though a hot tub that was also part of the hallway, you had to go through there to get to through the upstairs. Some kid had fallen in and had his head in his shirt and bubbles coming out like he was drowning. I pulled him up 3 times and finally just took the shirt off of his head. He was ok and I went back down stairs. I woke up from 2 more dreams where the woman was trying to get me to meet but finally got out of that.
I also had a recurring dream of a new neighborhood that we were starting. Our house was the first house there, the neighborhood had grown up around us and we were considering selling our house. All our neighbors wanted us to stay but it seemed like time to cash in and built a newer better house.
Then I dreamed that I was alone at a large facility where I had been working the concession stand. I was counting out the cash and a young man came in with a gun and told me he was going outside but to get the money ready for when he got back. He was pretty nice for a thief so I went in the other room and grabbed some cash and got started. In the process I looked outside and he was in the street a long way off and some lights were shining on him so I could see him. But then his girlfriend came in with a gun to get the money. She was obviously going to try to kill me so I tossed the money at her feet and took off for a safe room with a lock while she picked up the cash.
After that I was in a business meeting. I was with a high powered well respected man and a couple of employees. Two other guys came in to work out a deal and the high powered man killed them both. It was an awful murder but then he tried to get me to lie for him. That wasn’t working and before long everyone who came in could see what really happened but he was trying to get each one to lie about it and threatening everyone.
After that I dreamed that I was walking up the bleachers in a basketball game. We went all the way to the back and sat by a couple of young black guys. We were wearing Trump hats so a security guard tried to come and separate us like there was going to be conflict. But before he even got there I was laughing and joking and making friends with both of them. So the security guard went away again when he realized that we didn’t have a problem with anybody but actually were friendly.
And then I dreamed that a young lesbian woman was in a similar set of bleachers in a basketball game. She kept trying to sneak off to one of the female players. They were stopping the game and kept getting separated. But they met up after the game and I heard the word ‘pride’.
Those are the ones I can remember, I’m sure I lost some in there somewhere, it was a long night in dream land. But let me shorten in down into a series of issues. There was an adulterous woman, a kid drowning, a major move, fornication, robbery, fear, murder, intimidation, racial issues, fear of racial issues, politics, and gay pride and probably more aren’t so obvious.
I don’t entirely know if a night like this is a series of attacks, a group of issues to deal with or pray about, a warning, or checking my heart on each issue to see what I will do. But I know it wasn’t very restful. I wasn’t even myself in most of these dreams so I think these are issues to pray about in our nation. Even if I’m wrong I can’t be all the way wrong by reacting that way.
To go along with the theme of trouble, we lost most of our chickens to some sort of predator last night. I guess the war is raging all around. But let’s get back into he Bible study and find Jesus. It’s His kingdom and we live on the front lines of the battle for middle earth anyway, so we can’t expect everything to be smooth and easy all of the time.
Today we start into 1 Chronicles. This starts out with a genealogy and the various genealogies through the Bible compile the genealogy of Jesus when you put them together so there He is on page one. Today’s entire reading consists of the most boring and dry part of the entire Bible to me. It’s hard to even read this, it’s just the genealogy of one person or tribe after another. Now if I understood the name meanings of each name in this story I suspect this would suddenly be full of meaning and color! But that would require some hours and I’m not ready to commit to that study. I write these things with five kids running around and interrupting every 5 minutes and deep study doesn’t work out well.
But Jesus is on every page so let’s look deep enough to see Him in this jumble of names. When David ruled in Hebron he had 6 sons with these name meanings. 1. Faithful and true, tutor 2. God is my judge 3. Father of peace 4. The Lord is my master 5. The Lord that judges 6. Excellence of the people. It is interesting that ‘faithful and true’ is something that prophecy says about Jesus at His return and that ‘father of peace’ killed ‘faithful and true’ and went on to become a foreshadowing of antichrist.
In Jerusalem when David fully came into the Kingdom he had sons with these name meanings. 1. That hears or obeys, perdition 2. Returned, turned back, a spark 3. Gave 4. Peace 5. Election 6. God hearing 7. God is release 8. Brightness, clearness 9. Weak, slacked 10. enlightening, appearing 11. God hearing 12. God is knowing 13. God is release.
Now Hebron means society, friendship and Jerusalem means city of peace. Let’s lay that over the life of Jesus and see if we can’t make something of it. When Jesus came the first time, He ruled in friendship. During that time He produced fruit among those who followed Him. By friendship He became their (1)faithful and true tutor. He taught them about the (2)Judgement of God and to walk fearing God and not man. He showed them the (3)peace of the Father. He taught them to be (4)mastered by the Lord not ‘the masters’ that men pointed to. He taught about the (5)final judgement of the Lord. And He showed them the (6)excellence of people and how they could, in the flesh and empowered by the Holy Spirit, be excellent followers of God.
But in the end He will come fully into His kingdom. When He rules in the city of peace He will start by separating the ones that (1)hear and obey, from the ones who go to perdition. Then once the angels have sorted the people and marked each kind, He will (2)return and turn back the armies of evil. He will (3)give (4)peace to the (5)elect at that time. (6)God heard the prayers of the people and (7) He released (8) the brightness of His coming to save the (9) weak and (10) appearing in the air everyone could see that (11) God heard them, (12) He knew them and (13) He released them from their troubles forever.
That may not be a perfect understanding of how God intended that to be read but I think it brings some light to how we can read these kinds of chapters. The story of Jesus is always in there, it all points to Him and if we study scripture without seeing Jesus then we are missing something amazing. That was a fun little study out of what may be the driest part of the Bible.
Today in our 90 days we went through 1 Chronicles 1-9 and I hope you can read it with us. Any portion of it that you want to do a search of the name meanings will overlay with the story of Jesus in some way. The internet makes this an easy task for just a few names like we did above. Give it a try, it’s an interesting part of understanding scripture. I pray that you will be blessed with understanding and that you will be one who hears and obeys the voice of God. May you be healthy and grow in your walk with God and may God bless all y’all.
Practice Outlaw 