Commissioning Dream and a
Modern-Day Parable
-A message for the church.
Grace be to you
and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
With a heavy
burden, I testify to the truth of the following dream I had.
If any man have
ears to hear, let him hear...
In my dream, I was
in the foyer of a building, sitting on a couch with my feet comfortably propped
up on the table in front of me.
In the middle of
my lap, I had a notebook open and was casually flipping through it to review
some notes.
In the distance, I
heard two men speaking to each other with obviously downcast voices, saying
such things as:
“Nobody is coming...”
“Where is everybody?”
“What are we going to do?”
Sitting in
silence, I couldn’t help but overhear them and pondered their situation.
They were
obviously quite troubled, and I felt sorry for them.
I stole a quick
glance at them.
There were three
men.
The one on the
left was silent and stood peacefully gazing at the other two men who were
speaking.
The one in the
middle was looking down and had one hand propping up his chin in deep
contemplation.
The one on the
right stood with his shoulders shrugged, and his arms were out-stretched in
desperation.
I reasoned that they
had planned some sort of a get-together, but nobody had shown up.
It saddened and
disappointed me to think about it.
Then, one of them
called out:
“Hey you!”
I looked up, and
the man on the right had a huge smile on his face.
He was staring my direction
and had his right arm outstretched toward me.
Confused, I looked
over my right shoulder to see if he was pointing to somebody behind me.
But then he spoke
again, saying:
“Yeah, you...you!”
I stared back at
him in silence with a dumbfounded look.
His change in
countenance baffled me, and I wondered why he was talking to me.
His eyes were
radiant - sparkling like diamonds - and he looked as though he might burst with
joy.
Then he said:
“Read Zechariah...Zechariah
3!”
While wondering
what was going on, I looked down to my right on the couch – and there was my
Bible!
This shocked me,
as I had no idea that it was there!
So, I closed my
notebook, laid it in on the couch to my left, and picked up my Bible.
Sitting up, I
placed my Bible in the middle of my lap, and started flipping to Zechariah
3.
Then suddenly, the
man in the middle yelled out:
“NO!
NO! Read Ezekiel...Ezekiel 3!”
He startled me
with his piercing voice and sense of urgency.
His eyes were
radiant - glowing like fire - and his focused glare at me was so intense that
it made me uneasy.
I quickly turned
back to my Bible and started flipping the pages...
Then, the dream
ended and I woke up.
-
As I was brushing
my teeth that morning, I tried to shrug the dream off, but it wouldn’t let me
go. It was extremely vivid and so
peculiar – unlike any dream I had ever had.
Furthermore, the names Zechariah and Ezekiel were very foreign to
me. I knew very little about the
writings of the prophets. How had they
worked into my mind and dream? I had
never read a single passage from either of those books in the Bible, and I had
never heard anybody speak of them.
Ezekiel really struck me because I wasn’t even completely sure that this
was the name of a book in the Bible! The
peculiarity of the dream quickly turned into fear. Images of the two men with their radiant eyes
telling me to read the Bible passages were forever burned into my mind. At that time, I put down my toothbrush, went
to get my Bible, and sat down to read chapter 3 in both Zechariah and
Ezekiel...
That was in April
of 2000, a few months before my first mission trip to
This is Zechariah
3. (Key verses: Zechariah
3:8-10)
This is Ezekiel
3. (Key verses: Ezekiel
3:16-21)
As the Lord
reveals, I hope to share with you my personal thoughts on the dream and these chapters
in the Bible in the future.
For now, I trust
the Holy Spirit will give you understanding.
In any event, I
very strongly encourage and warn you to read these chapters, even as I was
commanded to in my dream.
I, Charles (
The grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
Mission Trip to Kabul,
Afghanistan