WATER OF LIFE

On April 20th, 2008 I had this dream:

Walking back to our old apartment (not one from real life). It’s the end of April and it will be turned over to new renters in a few days but I still have the key because I’m still paying rent. The complex has changed, it’s gotten worse. Along the street are tons of peoples stuff and lots of bikes filling half the street so that cars have to go halfway up the curb to pass. I am on-foot and walk through the complex towards the apartment. There are lots of things, on the lawn, sort of obstacles, and there are some trashy looking, little bit scary looking people everywhere that weren’t living there when we were there. I was glad I didn’t live here with he kids anymore and happy about our new apartment that was at a completely different place not in this complex.

I approach the building and more kinda scary looking people and I just pretend not to notice them and act like I belong here. I make my way up the stairs (its on the third or fourth floor) and on the way up I run into two of my old neighbors that I was friendly with. One is a guy, probably my age, who isn’t bothered by the people at the complex getting worse. The other is an older guy, he wants to move out but then he only has a year and a half until retirement then he wont have to live here anymore because he’s just living here for his job convenience. HE SAID HE COULD MOVE OUT BUT THE OPTIONS WOULD BE LIVING IN THE BRONX AND THAT WOULDN’T BE ANY IMPROVEMENT> I told him you can hold your breath for only a year and a half until retirement. He questioned that. I said look at the military guys they do it all the time to finish up their commitment with the military. He still seemed like it was too much of a burden for him but he didn’t know what else to do.

That was the end of the dream. The old guy in the dream wasn’t anyone I knew in real life so he didn’t symbolize anything to me other than a federal job. The month before I had just started applying for federal NAF jobs and I figured this dream was God telling me that I would get a federal job. There was a year probation to complete and a background investigation to pass so I figured that is what the year and a half symbolized (the time it would take to complete all that). But that didn’t explain the moving out of a bad neighborhood.

Nine days before this dream I had applied for my computer teacher job and had an interview and subsequent job offer two weeks after this dream. When I started, two months after my dream, at the FS youth center, it was considered the worst youth center, with all kinds of problems with the kids and turnover or shortage of staff. After I started the job I realized that this was the ‘bad neighborhood’ in my dream. Also, I had to commute but moving closer to work wouldn’t be a good solution for my family because of my kids school. I told my wife about my dream soon after it happened and we both wondered what God had in store.

There were lots of obstacles to overcome during my tenure at FS. There was loads of boxes of trash that had to be cleaned out of my computer lab and a huge storage trailer in back of the building that had to be emptied of rotting supplies. There were lots of physical obstacles but also many more spiritual obstacles, which the bikes symbolize in my dream (bikes for me symbolize spiritual balance). And there were times like the guy in my dream when I questioned if I could last a year and a half. Yet, I did see God’s answer to prayer and His hand at work in improving the center. (And when I left I saw a much better center than when I had arrived.)

On the twentieth (10-20-09), two days ago, they called me into work early for a staff meeting with my bosses’ boss. I had been thinking that maybe today was the day that God would fulfill my dream since it was exactly a year and a half after my dream—to the day! But I wasn’t sure, because it could also be December 20th which was a year and a half after I started work. That morning before going to work I listened to a sermon on Joseph’s life by RC Sproul. It was incredible that he was going over Joseph’s dreams because that day I was also wondering about my dream. Joseph told the cupbearer that the three branches in his dream meant in three days he would be raised up out of prison and restored to his position. (I too felt like that happened that day as I was taken out of the FS youth center and transferred up the mountain to Schofield.) The cupbearer’s dream was fulfilled three days after he had the dream.

Anyway I went in early to work and my bosses’ boss took me into the office and offered me a transfer to Schofield. All I could say was Hallelujah and Praise God. It happened on the exact day God told me in my dream (a year and a half later: 4-20-08 to 10-20-09). God does speak to us through our dreams and give us promises for our lives. God is good and deserves all the glory for He came through on His promise to the exact day. There is no way I could have orchestrated this or self-fulfilled this prophecy. I had applied for several jobs at Schofield but kept losing out to military spouses who have preference. Even my job was offered to a military spouse, but something didn’t work out with that. A couple months ago, they told me to reapply when it would be advertised again, but I was sure I would lose out to a spouse again because everyone is looking for work with the unemployment rate so high. Yet, the day before yesterday, they finally offered it to me as a transfer.

Mary was told by the Angel Gabriel that she would have the Son of God and she believed. “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!” (Luke 1:45).

The glory isn’t in the job, a job is a job, they come and go, it’s nothing to worship or covet. It’s the same position and new challenges in a new location. The glory is in God, His working in my life and using believers and non-believers alike to fulfill his promises. It’s in knowing I’m in line with His will for me, and right where He wants me to be right now. And that He cares that much for me. It’s also a confirmation, as I face new challenges and hardship at this new location, that God knows the plans He has for me and they are for good.

This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:10-11

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 10:01 am and is filed under Christianity, Christian Dream Interpretation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.