Coming from a Pentecostal background, and using Joel 2:28 and Acts 2:17 (and Isaiah 28:11) endlessly as proof that Speaking in Tongues was required for salvation, I always wondered why we summarily ignored the rest of the verse. Men and women prophesying, old mean dreaming dreams, and young men seeing visions.

I wrote an article on Cherry Picking the Scripture which applies to that thought, but today we want to talk about dreams, and are they from God? Does God give us dreams for warnings, for hope, or is it the pizza, the sausage, and the beer? Wait, Beer?

It shall come about after this That I shall pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and your daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. – Joel 2:28, AMP

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: Acts 2:17, KJV

In fact, I remember other men and women in church circles talking about dreams they had, believing they were from God and most people considered them lunatics as if they were on an acid trip. The pastor always held the line, ‘If it [the dream] was from God, He [God] will confirm it by telling me too. Until then, it means nothing.’

Now, I consider that arrogance on the Pastor’s part, because the Scripture never once implies that only a message that passes through the pastor is legit. To be frank, there were no Pastors in the Bible.

But, on to dreams. I’ve had one dream that I really and truly believe was from God, and some that I believe were either God inspired or were a direct message from God as well, I can’t be positive on those.

My Dream

I was driving down a bustling street in what seemed to be an endless horizon of high-rise buildings. Lights flashed by as I passed street lights, and cars, road signs, lighted billboards. This was a first person image, with the dash of my car in front of me, my hands were on my steering wheel and I was looking through the glass of my windshield.

There were as many people crowding the busy sidewalks as there were lights flashing by, their images blurred by the speed of my car but all I could really focus on was my hands on the steering wheel, moving gently left and right. The road before me was straight, endlessly, and that didn’t seem to be strange to me.

I suddenly felt a change, like the pressure in your ears as you rapidly rise or descend the side of a mountain, or in an airplane. There was a pressure beneath me, pushing me up but I pushed myself down into my seat, holding onto my steering wheel. 

As I pondered the odd feeling, I began to see streaks of light shooting from the ground up into the sky, above my vision through the windshield. In all directions, slowly at first but then speeding up more lights began shooting towards the heavens. Fear gripped me, unsure what was happening. and the pressure underneath me, as if a hand was under my seat pushing me up, returned but strong and unbeatable.

Leaning forward in my seat I squinted, trying to determine what the lights were, and at the same time, I began rising in my seat. My first person vision could just see my hands on the steering wheel as I looked down at them, my knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel hard enough to keep me from rising out of my car. I wonder, why am I not hitting the roof of the car?

Looking up again through the windshield I realized the white streaks looked like crosses of brilliant white lear, smearing as they shot upwards, gone from sight in less than a second. Looking back at my hands, it dawned on me what was happening. God was taking his people home! It was the rapture of the Church, and each soul, in a moment, and in the twinkling of an eye, was gone. Then, fear returned.

Why wasn’t I gone? Had I missed the mark, was I to miss this event of great hope and favor? Let go. What had I done to be left behind? Let go. Frantically looking around, feeling a lump in my throat as fear turned to grief, and grief to panic, I wanted to cry out. Let go.

Looking down at my hands, gripping the steering wheel, I received the message God wanted me to have. Let go. As I did, the lights, the people, street signs and cars, buildings, roads, avenues, homes, vistas, forests, rivers, oceans, and islands fell beneath me. And in a twinkling, I was gone.

I awoke the next day wondering why it was so hard to let go if this world but the message was clear, if you want to make heaven your home, this world must be let go.