Daily Journal: 18 May

Walk in Freedom

Do you believe in the power of dreams? Do you believe that God can speak to you through dreams?

Both the old and new testaments of the bible tell of many incidents where dreams and visions are central to leading and guiding, of hope and promise. Joseph, Jesus Christ's own earthly father, was given numerous dreams instructing him and giving him wisdom that safeguarded the life of Jesus Christ.

Dreams can be open to interpretation, so it's important to seek the counsel of the Holy Spirit and discern His message.

Once I had a dream about imprisonment and coercion; of people's power over others and not being conformed to the intimidation of the world's standards.

In the dream, ordinary folk were imprisoned by self-appointed people in power, people with money, and Influencers. It wasn’t a criminal prison. It was known as a 'training camp'; forcibly coercing, training or, really, programming people to live according to the expectations of those in power. Most people didn’t call it a prison, but a 'camp'. In order to get out of the camp, people had to go through programs to learn how, and submit, to doing things the way they were told. There was a lot of pressure to participate in the programs. People could ‘choose’ from a list of individually designed programs to complete, according to their "weaknesses". They weren’t forced to do the programs but they couldn’t get out unless they did. If they tried to escape, force was used to make them stay.

It was a horrible dream. Much like the 1976 Eagles song, Hotel California, it depicted enslavement but few people realised they were being enslaved.

I woke up with the words, “Don’t listen to the things of man. Listen to The Spirit.”

Part of the impact of the dream was that people didn't realise the extent to which they were being coerced. They were blind to it.

2 Timothy 4:3 (NCV)

because the time will come when people will not listen to the true teaching but will find many more teachers who please them by saying the things they want to hear.

When we follow norms and patterns of living based on the world around us, we become imprisoned in our thoughts and habits, maybe without realising it. If we do realise it, we don’t always want to change. We become comfortable with it. We become settled with how things work inside those patterns. We can understand ourselves inside those norms. But if we do that, we minimise the impact of these norms in our lives at the cost of God's glory and what He wants to do. We have to seek, look, search with all of our hearts, for what God wants for us.

1 Corinthians 2:12-13 (NCV)

Now we did not receive the spirit of the world, but we received the Spirit that is from God so that we can know all that God has given us. And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom but with words taught us by the Spirit. And so we explain spiritual truths to spiritual people.

To move out of our past, and out of the world's norms and collective understandings, we have to intentionally step away from those things. We must deliberately choose the things of God. We must deliberately embrace the knowledge that the Spirit of God can transform us and help us walk a different path. If we choose with all of our heart, He will show us a path that is free from past experiences of defeat, power and control, humiliation, subjugation, worthlessness, hopelessness, fear, anger or pain.

John 8:31-32 (ESV) So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

To abide, means to settle down in, to enjoy a permanent rest in, to be fully immersed in. We either immerse ourselves in the world or we immerse ourselves in the ways of God and Christ Jesus.

There are so many small ways we don’t live fully immersed. But those small ways can make the biggest difference. What do we watch on television? What music do we listen to? What thoughts do we consider that shape us? God can do big things but we’re usually changed incrementally by the small choices we make every day.

When we notice those small choices and diligently discipline ourselves to live according to God's pleasure, we will never be intimidated or coerced into living according to the world's advertisements of pleasure, well-being or completeness. Only God can bring wholeness and that level of goodness to our lives because He is the giver of all good things.

James 1:17 (NIV)

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Only God can show us how to walk in freedom. When we follow Him completely, we find that freedom to be our authentic selves and the ability to do what He created us to do.

I pray we follow God’s truths in all the small, significant ways and be changed by Him in big ways.