After an evening struggling with discouragement, I woke the next morning from a dream about outnumbered soldiers in a battle where miracles were the only thing keeping them safe, where the final defenses were nearly breached but where victory may have happened at the end. And where the stakes were higher than the soldiers’ lives—where God had a higher purpose.
Lying in bed, thinking about my dream, I got a song: the Newsboys’ “Never Surrender, Never Say Die.”
Then my morning reading included this verse:
As soon as I pray, you answer me;
you encourage me by giving me strength.
Psalm 138:3, NLT*
Wow… I’d been praying for help, for focus and encouragement. I’d been doing my feeble best to keep my thoughts God-centered in the gloom.
This verse tells me God heard. And He answered as soon as I prayed. Not that I experienced the answer then, but I wonder how much easier the night would have been if I’d counted the prayer answered as soon as I prayed it—if I’d begun to thank Him for what He was in the process of doing, instead of waiting until I saw for myself.
Encouraged? Yes. Challenged? Yes. Thank You, God, and please help me be ready for next time.
∞
*New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Hang in there, my friend. What’s the saying… “The night is always darkest just before the dawn”?
Dawn came after the gloom, and all’s good as long as I remember to keep trusting God. Thank you, Violet!
Thank you.
Heaven is going to be SO MUCH BETTER than this.
Yes, Susan, YES. We will get there.
Janet, I most often dream convoluted nonsense. Soldiers and miracles! Yes! The battle continues. Counting on miraculous outcomes. Good things now as God fights for us, and an amazing forever.
My dreams are usually a mess too. This one encouraged and challenged me, though. God is so good, and His plans are much bigger than we know.
I can so identify. Is it my imagination, or is the battle hotter now than ever?
I have felt bad that Jesus never seems to be in my dreams. I always wake up and think how much better it would have been if I’d remembered him in the midst of the loneliness or the fear I’d felt in the dream. But it’s always as if I don’t know him in my dreams. I’m praying that will change, because I want him in every part of my mind, even the subconscious.
Amen, Ginny, may we know Jesus even in the subconscious. That’s what I’m holding onto should dementia come my way in the future.
I don’t think faith is often a part of my dreams, but those times when it is, I always wake refreshed and energized. May His light seep more and more into your dreams and increase your joy.