**A synopsis is given at the end of this blog, to add greater understanding to what role dreams and DINGs and Oswald play throughout these blogs.

As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. _{[Gen 15:12]}

Probe 1: If darkness comes when
a vision, a call, has been given,
we are to be willing to wait
and listen while it’s dark.
God has reason for this darkness.
How open are you to accepting
darkness in your call?
I learned…

God has reason for this darkness. So that all our self-sufficiency would be destroyed. I experienced times and degrees of this darkness while on what I came to realize was a God-engineered Journey.¹ The circumstances that created the Journey began with a prompt and dream from the Lord.  The aspects within the dream, “Man Is Mani,” were very much like a vision as the key parts played out in waking life.

The call initiated by the Lord through the dream began a relationship with Mani for several years. When the relationship halted, the call did not. Immediately following the halt, I began to have very focused dreams on the relationship with Mani. I was drawn to the Lord’s presence as He connected the dreams to an Oswald Chambers devotional as it progressed and other prompted resources._{[See Intro 2.]}

In the previous dream, “Overwhelmed Heart,” I had the impression I was having physical pain within my heart but then when awakening I realized it was all a dream. _{[See Part 5.1b.]} While I dealt with some of what had put me on this orchestrated Journey, the meaning of heart issues in a dream indicated pain and fear were still buried deep within me.

A partial reason for the pain and fear in my heart was the brokenness still residing there. An epiphany the Lord gave me just weeks before indicated He wasn’t finished including Mani in this Journey. That had added to the wondering as to what could be the Lord’s plan. _{[See Part 4.6.]}

Could it be the reason the shadow of His Hand has hovered over me for these many months has been the time the Lord’s needed for me to let go of “all [my own] sufficiency” and let Him? Through His revelations, I’ve given what He has shown me over to Him. Nevertheless, how much more was still under the surface?¹

The dream meaning for experiencing physical heart issues indicated I was having difficulty with spiritual clarity. As my dream coach, Marilyn, continued to help me understand all the Lord was giving me, clarity continued to nag at me. The pain was still there and I had no idea if and when it would lift. I wondered if more pain was to come.

The core of God”s purpose for allowing the pain was unknown to me: this included the lack of understanding why the Lord had created the dream that had drawn me to reconnect with Mani and then halt it. I was bound to struggle as the year of dreams came immediately after the halt that kept Mani as part of the whole of this Journey. Yet, I also knew from previous experience I could overcome only through the Lord as He alone was sufficient.

As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him. _{[Gen 15:12]} When. Abraham found himself in the horror of this darkness, there was no possibility left for him to rely on commonsense ways. “Those were years of silence” for Abraham as “a time of discipline, not a period of God’s displeasure.” Everyone must be disciplined in some way “to know God is real.”³

I was drawn to what Oswald was explaining for it reminded me of the profound study a few months ago about Abram and doubt. As with Abram, I was not to rely on commonsense as it just caused more confusion. I was to trust the Lord as He has so often told me to do. When given a vision, I was to realize the “shadow of His hand” had come over me. Like Abram, I was to be still and listen. And as it would tarry, I was to wait. _{[See Part 3.2b.]}

I prayed as I journaled the following: “When God sends a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will make you in accordance with the vision He has given if you wait His time. Never try and help God fulfill His Word”—DING.⁴ The Lord has kept Mani as part of His connections with me as He made His presence known. I’ve tried not to get in the way but to hold-on and holdback so God could work. And I’ve continued to do so even when lack of understanding has created angst.

A second GMDING came hours later, as I prayed about this Journey. I heard these words from a song: “Don’t give up; it’s not finished yet.”⁵ I then said to the Lord: I’m holding onto this promise—DING. Two powerful GMDINGs this day! God showed me He had my back and I must hold-on and wait to understand.

Probe 2: When God works in me
through His Spirit, I can’t “know
where it begins as it’s hidden in
the depths of my personal life.”
Born from above, it’s an “eternal,
perennial, perpetual beginning.
Are you willing to let God work
within you even if unknown
as to how He will do so?
I learned…

This beginning will not only be perennial but enduring, perpetual and never-changing—eternal. It gives us a “freshness in thinking, in living, a continual surprise of the life of God.” When born of the Spirit, we can expect the “unmistakable work of God, as mysterious as the wind, as surprising as God Himself.⁶

While I may not know where His work begins, I do know He’s been with me all through this relationship with Mani. I hope I’ll eventually witness some very surprising ways He’s been working while I’ve been in the dark. The Lord hasn’t changed the call He’s given me from the very beginning.

That call was to pray for him to come to know the Lord; a prayer that was said for many years when he came to mind as I had no direct connection with him. That prayer in the dream, “Man Is Mani,” led to Mani telling me in the dream, “Mickey, I know the Lord.” _{[See Intro 2]}

That declaration was in direct relationship to what we discussed about the Lord many years before. And then during the first time I talked to Mani on the phone after having that dream, he used my nickname and repeated the exact words “Mickey, I know the Lord.” in real time in the same voice as I heard in the dream.

The Lord put those words into Mani’s mind so I’d connect the dream with what he was telling me in person. That was the most precious thing I could have heard—my prayers for all those years had been answered and I got to hear it in person. The Lord does not forget!

Sin came into the world “to derail” us and get us off track but it hasn’t changed the Lord’s direction, His plans, one iota. That miracle of the Lord’s plan even though years went by—no matter how far off track Mani may have gotten—the Lord prevailed! And the Lord let me know within months of it happening. This far surpassed the miracle of the dream and the initiating of the relationship.

The new call since the recent halt in the relationship has been for Mani to be filled with the love of the Lord that would exceed anything he could ever imagine. I was to trust the Lord’s plan has not been “derailed” one iota! Not able to know much of what was taking place in his life since the halt in the relationship, I couldn’t know how God was working with him. But I could pray.

The engineered Journey that has taken place since the halt in the relationship with Mani—the dreams, the connections of Oswald’s devotions and other ways God made His presence known—has been what Oswald calls the “unmistakable work of God.” It has all been as mysterious as the wind, a surprise I’ve learned to expect as His perfect will and way but one I’ve struggled to understand.

My trust level was low as I sought to understand His purposes. But as I was obedient, the Lord blessed me; He filled me “full of the little things”, the God-Moments, or GMs. He helped me look deep within myself as I waited for His timing. Oswald described those moments I had with Him as one’s that “filled His heart with gladness.”

I’ve tried not to “whimper,” to complain because things weren’t going my way. When in such a place, we aren’t to “pump up or pretend” our lives are “filled with confidence and joy” when they aren’t but must willingly stay in wait and become “grounded” in the Lord. If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light trust in the Lord and rely on your God. _{[Isa 50:10]}

With reliance on the Lord, I was honestly to speak of the doubt that had crept into me as the mystery of it all overwhelmed me. By continuing to turn to Him, I fulfilled what He has “treasured” and I found that this brought the “joy,” He promised me.⁷

The Lord was building a case for Himself within me. My love and devotion for Him was increasing due to all He had engineered for me while on this Journey. And because it had, deep within, there was hope for all has been for my good and the furthering of His plan. I found a joy deep down within me that I had begun to believe would get me through what was still ahead for me.

The dream that came next offset the last dream that had the need to address the pain that continued to attack my heart. “Beauty in Crushed Crystals” took place at an interactive craft store. Two young girls were with me and chose to create pictures using crushed crystals. They were given geodes and then left to work on the craft. I visited with a woman in the store while they worked.

When I went to check on them I found they were creating some amazing pictures with the crystals they found on the inside of the geodes. How they were able to get the rocks open to expose the crystals let alone crush them to make beautiful pictures mystified me as did the amazing pictures they created.

While more will be shared on this dream in the next blog, the two young girls represented my creative inner child. As children they represented my ability to get in touch with the child-like curiosity that can take that mundane-looking rock and find the beauty in it. The Lord was showing me that through Him the potential of wholeness I’ve needed was there.

Depth, Drive, and Direction Challenge: When troubling things happen in your life, how do you respond? You may be overwhelmed as I was when not understanding. You may be wondering what is the Lord doing? Or where is He?

It could be when you’ve called on Him, you haven’t had a terrifying dream as Abram did in the darkness but darkness has seemed to hover over you. If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light trust in the Lord and rely on your God. _{[Isa 50:10]}

We all can find ourselves in the dark places at times. I found by choosing to continue to turn to Him even in the darkness, I was fulfilling what He “treasured” and that was what brought on the “joy,” not only for Him but it overflowed into me.⁹

A relationship with the Lord is something on which we must continually and actively work. Where are you in your relationship with the Lord? How is your heart? Has it been filled with gladness because you have brought great joy to Him? It is never too late to start creating that joy.

¹Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1935:19
²Abraham “Awesome and Mind-boggling Covenant” online on 4.25.24 https://www.firstpreswh.org/wp-content/uploads/01.12-1.jpg
³Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 1992: 1.19
⁴Chambers. 1935:19
⁵Lyrics.com, STANDS4 LLC, 2024. “Move (Keep Walkin’) Lyrics.” Accessed April 27, 2024. https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/31963087/tobyMac/Move+%28Keep+Walkin%E2%80%99%29.
⁶Chambers. 1935:20
⁷Chambers. 1992:1.19
⁸Ibid. 1.21
⁹Ibid. 1.21

Featured photo credit: Shreesha Bhat

**The perils of using a blog to share something that is more like a chapter book makes it hard for you as the reader to connect all the parts! Here is a short synopsis.
Dreams: These dreams came over a period of a year and were all connected. I had no rogue dreams during this time. In Intro 2, it describes how the Lord gave me a dream that played out initiating a relationship with a man I’ve called “Mani” in these blogs. The rest of the dreams came during the year after the halt in a three-year relationship.
DINGs: The sound from my phone that meant “Mani” had connected by text or through a game we had played together almost since the beginning of our relationship. While he was from my area, he had moved a couple hours away several years before the relationship. After the halt in it, he wanted to stay connected so we did throughout the year of the dreams. He connected many of the days and sometimes multiple times. Only the DINGs in which the Lord’s presence was sensed became GMDINGs. I was given a vision of this DING during the dream year that gave greater insight. [See Part 3.4a; Part 3.4b; Part 3.4c and Part 3.4d]
Oswald: A reference to Oswald Chambers and his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. On the day of the first dream in the year of dreams, the Lord prompted me to begin reading his devotional beginning with that day which was March 31. Phenomenal connects to the dreams and to the issues I was addressing were present throughout the year. It kept me grounded through the Word and prayer as I went through this experience—a God-engineered Journey.

Midway in the dream year, a couple of Oswald’s devotions challenged me to “spill out” what the Lord had been giving me. Several events prompted by the Lord opened the way for me to begin doing so through this blog. Those ‘See Part so and so’ within the blogs are paths back to a blog that will give added understanding.

My prayer is that you will be blessed as you read for all glory goes to the Lord as I am just His vessel to pour it out.
Michele

**A synopsis is given at the end of this blog, to add greater understanding to what role dreams and DINGs and Oswald play throughout these blogs.

Probe 1: Henry Cloud echoed
Oswald on a crucial disposition.
I can only work on self with God
if obedient to Him through Christ.
Any other way sabotages it.
Do you seek or sabotage the Lord’s
purposes and will for your life?
I learned…

When the Lord has made Himself known, it’s been through a plethora of creative ways. Some have come when I’ve been prompted to read a certain book. Often one I’ve read at an earlier time so would already be on my bookshelf. Thus, when reviewing what had happened a few months before, He brought to my attention Henry Cloud’s The Secret Things of God.

In the review, I found that Cloud as Oswald both spoke of this crucial disposition I must have. Unless I’m seeking the Lord’s purposes and will for my life, or as Cloud says, working on who I am on the inside in obedience to Him, I can “sabotage” the best God has for me; He won’t make me obey. I must choose to do so.¹

I purposely was to work at keeping “the notion of God” behind all things strong and growing. Therefore, nothing should happen in any particular unless God’s will was behind it. This encouraged me to be obedient.² Once I made the choice to get under the authority of the Lord Himself, then my “whole attitude” was to be one of continual “obedience to Him.”³

The review of the previous months helped to refresh me as to what the Lord had called me to do. While it was a challenge to be completely obedient, I was resolved if shown I had missed the mark that I’d turn back immediately to my call.

When not sure where I was, I was to go to the Lord in prayer and make certain I was following through with what He’d asked of me. And through the ongoing months, the Lord has addressed these needs by making His presence known and speaking through the dreams, devotions, Scripture, and other resources.

In the review a few months before, I had contemplated the notion of God and the need to be obedient. The Lord prompted me to finish a poem of Mani’s to music on which I had been working at the halt of the relationship with him. On the day I finished it, I made a request to the Lord as I placed the finish product on the table.

Amazed, the Lord made His pleasure clearly known as He answered exactly what I requested in the prayer. I expressed out loud to Him, “Okay, Lord, I’m finished; You can connect us now—DING. Mani connected at that very moment the copy of music touched the table.

And then fast forward to just days before this first dream of Part 5, “Overwhelmed Heart.” I was reviewing the day when I completed the poem to music and was entering the information about that phenomenal DING by typing the exact statement into another document for the review. A DING came right on the word, DING, as I typed it.

An amazing DING at the time and now amazing for the Lord to re-emphasize my obedience months later with His presence and another connect from Mani. To have a DING on a DING was another profound connect the Lord made possible increasing its importance.

Oswald continued the idea of being obedient in his next devotion. Something must die for the life of Jesus to be resurrected within. It meant to be at the end of self, to “go through ‘a white funeral’—the burial of the old life.” As I chose to let go and “bury” my old life, I found my life was resurrected in Christ. He was to be first. And I must become one with Him.

As I’ve become one with Him, it has been an ongoing process for within all lives there are those things “folded up deep within” that the penetrating light of the Spirit will reveal. It will then be up to each of us to address what He has revealed to us alone.⁴

In the past months, I’ve dealt with envy; it had to die in me. I believe I’ve become one with the Lord. But have I completely died—is this my last day of self? I doubt it. It will be an ongoing process. Only with the Lord’s help can I even begin to be rid of self.

I pray I’ll always listen and hear when He tells me something has been found still folded up within me as He did with envy. I was given insight through His presence; He made me aware of what needed to die within me. I pray He will do the same with anything else.

That night before sleep, I prayed I’d be given insight about what I must draw out from the review to tell the story the Lord wanted me to “break-out… to spill out.” A dream came later during the night but I couldn’t remember any of it to write it down except the sense I was seeking something. Perhaps it was my every day sense of wondering where this Journey was leading. I had a sense from the dream I was committed to finding whatever that was.

As I prayed about it, the Lord brought my thoughts around to the importance of the GMDINGs—they create the intrigue of how the Lord connects the three of us—both Mani and me with Himself. I prayed again about something I had expressed earlier in the evening: I had not heard from Mani yet this day and my prayer had been that everything was all right with him. Within moments as I laid down to rest—DING.

Connections like this when He coordinated His presence to the same time Mani would connect had led me to learn more of His nature. Oswald also continued to address the nature of the Lord as well. I was to consider the nature of the One, the Voice, Who has called me. Like those who hear “the call of the sea or mountains or ice barriers”, it’s only for those who hear the call.

Probe 2: A call from God is
an expression of His nature;
Isaiah heard the Lord’s call
and that was because his soul
was “attuned to His nature.”
Is your soul so attuned to God’s
nature you hear His call?
I learned…

We can only respond to God’s call if that “same nature is in us”—and that would be His nature in us. “Isaiah was so attuned to God because of the great crisis he just endured, that the call of God penetrated his soul.” For us to hear God, it is often futile because all we hear is ourselves, thus, God’s Voice is not heard. Yet, we can become like Isaiah and hear His Voice. _{[Isaiah 6]}

Reason would say I’ve heard the Lord as I’ve become better attuned to Him while in this confusing time. That would then mean His call had come to me through the “expression of God’s nature in [me] not [my] own nature.”

Before the beginning of this Journey, the Lord spoke to me and then gave me a dream to clarify it. God initiated the relationship with Mani for several years until it halted. It was then that the year of dreams began which have continued to include His presence with me—the God-Moments. _{[See Intro 2.]}

What I experienced during that time to the present, I believe illustrated those “strands of the call of God” given to me that I know are from the Lord but no one else would have any inkling about them. Oswald described it as the “threading of God’s voice” to me in some “particular matter.” This call has been a lot like the scarlet thread that ran through the quilt in the novel, The Scarlet Thread. That thread described how the Lord worked in the life of the quilt’s creator.

I was prompted to read the novel at the time I was given the dream, “Writing in Red Ink.” The threading of God’s call in my life connected to the dream. The words I wrote in red ink were examples of what I had been writing in my journal in waking life. Like the red thread through the quilt, what I was writing in red ink was a letter to Mani describing what the Lord had been doing in my life since I had last seen him which had been months before.

The words in red ink were alone for Mani to know how the Lord was keeping him in my waking life. Yet in reality, I was to keep this relationship “between [my] soul and God” and was not to be shared with Mani at the time of the dream, “Writing in Red Ink.” While I couldn’t at this time share anything with Mani in obedience to God, He used those desires to give me an amazing experience in connection with the novel, The Scarlet Thread. _{[See Parts 3.2c and 3.3c]}

These profound experiences of the deep-felt relationship with the Lord have been indescribable. At the right timing, the Lord called me to begin to share all He had put within me in the form of these “Dreams, DINGs, and Oswald” blogs. While no one can have the same exact experience I’ve had, I pray, my blogs give hints as to what He will do in each of us when we seek Him.

Others may have a similar call or one that joins with mine but there will be strands that are mine alone—only for me. I know I’ve heard the call and have been reminded of it often; thus, I believe I’ve been attuned to it as He has given it to me in many forms and ways through the God-Moments, the GMs. I’ve been profoundly altered because of them.

While I hadn’t yet seen the fullness of His call, I prayed when I did I’d find I served Him in such a way He’d see it as a “deliberate love gift” of the nature within me that’s “heard the call of God.”

The call hasn’t changed since the beginning—God called me to pray that His boundless love would breakthrough and fill Mani to the brim so he’d find all the Lord has for him. Thus, the Voice of the Divine nature would sound in both—the nature He’s put in me and in His call—the two working together.⁵

That night after going to bed, I was overwhelmed with a painful sensation in my heart. It was hard to breathe for several minutes and I wondered if I needed to call someone for help. As I contemplated this, I prayed about it and then woke up. It had been a dream as I had no pain once I had awakened. A dream gave it a different meaning than what would be reality.

To deal with an illness in a dream is to lack spiritual clarity. This was a great understatement for me in waking life! The problem I faced had been whether a possibility existed to get beyond the pain until the mystery was lifted, the veil removed; with no end in sight, the idea of more pain to come created more fear and angst.

The emotional and relational strain and stress on my heart in waking life took its toll on my body, mind and soul. I had dealt with it for months on this God-engineered Journey as best I could with the halt in the relationship and then the realization the Lord wanted Mani to remain a part of it through the dreams and more.

I struggled to get a hold of the calm I needed because the doubt in my heart continued to sabotage what my mind and heart was trying to hold onto and believe. To deal with the “core of the matter”—that only the Lord knew and, thus, beyond my control—was easier said than done.

To pray in a dream is significant. My daily practice of prayer in waking life was depicted within this dream. While I hadn’t recognized it in many dreams, It most likely happened more often than I realized. The fact I constantly turned to the Lord to find answers in waking life assured me it had become a well-established habit in waking life and perhaps in dreams.

The Lord met me with His intentions when I awakened from the dream to show me the condition of my heart was not physical but relational. I assumed this meant He had a definite purpose to keep me suspended in this halt without an understanding of the outcome. This dream was the Lord’s answer to my request before sleep; I needed help with the pain that continued to get me down.

I so wanted to get beyond the ups and downs of not understanding the Lord’s purposes while on this Journey. The pain kept me coming back to Lord and I did just that when I awakened from this dream. I praised Him that my heart was okay but then I had to deal with the emotional pain that would remain there.

Depth, Drive, and Direction Challenge: Isaiah, as others, heard the voice of the Lord and said: “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send and who will go for Us?” As Isaiah witnessed the presence of the Lord within the Temple, he heard the Lord ask if anyone was there who was willing to take a message to the people. Whether others answered the Lord or not, Isaiah did, “Here I am, send me.” _{[Isa. 6:8 NLT]}

As Isaiah made his willingness known, the Lord expanded on the request. It would be a message of hope to some but a message of judgment to others. If you would read on in Isaiah 6, you’d find the Lord warned him that most would listen to him but would not learn and turn to the Lord. But it would be worth it because a few who listened would actually hear and turn from their ways.

Have you listened, heard and embraced the Good News of Jesus Christ? If not, I encourage you to seriously listen to hear, so that you see with your eyes, understand with your heart and turn to the Lord and be healed. Sometimes, it takes being at the end of our rope or hitting the bottom of the barrel. You may be there or on your way there. The Lord is ready and waiting for you to seek Him and turn to Him.

¹Cloud, Henry. The Secret Things of God. New York: Howard Books. 2007:146-147
²Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1935:7.16
³ibid:7.19
⁴Ibid:15
⁵Ibid:16

Featured photo credit: Shreesha Bhat

**The perils of using a blog to share something that is more like a chapter book makes it hard for you as the reader to connect all the parts! Here is a short synopsis.
Dreams: These dreams came over a period of a year and were all connected. I had no rogue dreams during this time. In Intro 2, it describes how the Lord gave me a dream that played out initiating a relationship with a man I’ve called “Mani” in these blogs. The rest of the dreams came during the year after the halt in a three-year relationship.
DINGs: The sound from my phone that meant “Mani” had connected by text or through a game we had played together almost since the beginning of our relationship. While he was from my area, he had moved a couple hours away several years before the relationship. After the halt in it, he wanted to stay connected so we did throughout the year of the dreams. He connected many of the days and sometimes multiple times. Only the DINGs in which the Lord’s presence was sensed became GMDINGs. I was given a vision of this DING during the dream year that gave greater insight. [See Part 3.4a; Part 3.4b; Part 3.4c and Part 3.4d]
Oswald: A reference to Oswald Chambers and his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. On the day of the first dream in the year of dreams, the Lord prompted me to begin reading his devotional beginning with that day which was March 31. Phenomenal connects to the dreams and to the issues I was addressing were present throughout the year. It kept me grounded through the Word and prayer as I went through this experience—a God-engineered Journey.

Midway in the dream year, a couple of Oswald’s devotions challenged me to “spill out” what the Lord had been giving me. Several events prompted by the Lord opened the way for me to begin doing so through this blog. Those ‘See Part so and so’ within the blogs are paths back to a blog that will give added understanding.

My prayer is that you will be blessed as you read for all glory goes to the Lord as I am just His vessel to pour it out.
Michele

**A synopsis is given at the end of this blog, to add greater understanding to what role dreams and DINGs and Oswald play throughout these blogs.

Probe 1: Part 4 ended with dreams
which fulfilled my Advent prayer
on expectancy that the Lord assure
me to stay with Him on this Journey’s
“Long, Long Trail” He engineered.
In what ways has the Lord made
His presence known during
a tough season of your life?
I learned…

A transition into Part 5 came between the last four dreams in three days of Part 4 and the first dream, “Overwhelmed Heart” in the next. The dreams I requested at the beginning of Advent had fulfilled my quest. _{[See Part 4.1a]} This gave clarity to any closures and beginnings that needed to be made to prepare for what was ahead as this Journey continued.

Before going on, I want to look back over the past months of the Journey and what I learned about them after the year of dreams. As I dug deeper into each dream and the other ways the Lord presented Himself to me, I discovered a division of six distinct parts. The way the Lord had structured the entire year gave greater input to what was experienced.

In the midst of the year, the Journey seemed like a bunch of puzzle pieces with only a few connections. _{[See Part 3.8b]} The Lord didn’t leave me completely in the dark as time went on. Continually prompted to review what took place in the earlier months, more connections were found before and after significant dreams, DINGs and other God-Moments.

The six parts were discovered after the year of dreams when prompted to fully reread the book about dreams and their meanings from a spiritual perspective by Paul Meier and Robert Wise, Windows of the Soul. Taking notes as I read it, the authors explained how to unravel and discern the use of each dream symbol in ways that connected to where I was and what I needed at that particular moment.

The crucial element was prayer during the year and after as I analyzed all parts the Lord brought to my attention as the Journey unfolded. Thus, I created a format from the suggestions in the book to analyze each of the dreams in connection with the whole year of them. I gave a synopsis of it in an earlier blog. _{[See Part 4.8b.]}

I found the format became an invaluable tool. I could go much deeper into each dream. Thus, more connections to the other resources experienced before and after each dream were discovered. The format created awareness of the continuity of what had unfolded throughout the whole year. I found many connects from one end to the other. I also could see clearly the six divisions between sets of dreams and the other God-Moments, or GMs, supporting them. The Lord had worked methodically through the full year of dreams.

I’m grateful for Marilyn, my dream coach, who was often the one to see beyond what I could at the time. I discovered the overall gist of Part 1 to be an introduction to God’s plan for me since the relationship He had initiated had halted. He began by showing me He knew my hurt and loss. _{[See Intro 2; Part 1.1]} As the dreams continued in Part 1, I found through Marilyn’s help that I was on a Journey—a God-engineered Journey.

Oswald connected here as he often spoke of God as the Master Engineer. “He allows difficulties to come in order to see if you can vault over them properly.”¹ Peter described these adversities when he wrote: “Don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through , as if something strange were happening to you.” Peter went on to say there would be the “wonderful joy of seeing Christ’s glory when it is revealed to the world.” _{[1 Pt 4:12 NLT]}

A month into this Journey, Oswald had spoken of the need to tarry, to wait in patience. A patience that conveyed the “idea of an immensely strong rock withstanding all onslaughts.” Moses, Jesus, and others had to withstand the wilderness; I realized at that point I was on a wilderness Journey. Two dreams just before this revelation and one after spoke to this Journey. _{[See Part 1.2b; Part 1.3; Part 1.4a]} Other dreams and moments with the Lord [GMs] continued to prepare me through this first Part.

The preparation extended into Part 2 as dreams and other GMs maintained the Journey. This led me to the realization I must deepen in my relationship with the Lord as He affirmed He was with me in a dream as Master Pianist or Player. _{[See Part 2.6a]}

Part 3 began the deepening process as the Lord prompted me to discover several resources to add to the devotions. I was given an abundance of remarkable dreams that then connected to the devotions and other resources. _{[See Part 3.2c and 3.3c; Part 3.4a]}

As Moses in the wilderness with God’s people, it wasn’t because he had the “ideal of right and duty” but that he had “a vision of God.” Like him, I’ve experienced “a vision of God.” Yet as God had to work with Moses, I found it hasn’t been easy to stay on track and thus at the point of Part 4, I needed encouragement to stay with it.²

As I summed up Part 4, the first four dreams gave purpose in all that had taken place and I must stay with this Journey. The Lord continued to give evidence He was in this with me as I walked in the steps He laid out for me. When awakening from the final dream, “Cruise to Nowhere,” the Lord spoke. He told me I needed neither a boat nor anything else for navigation other than Himself. I needed to step out into, onto, and through whatever would be before me with Him alone. _{[See Part 4.9a.]}

Probe 2: I was to trust the Lord had
made “a holy experiment out” of me
and I could live in expectation that
“God’s experiments always succeed.”
Have you ever felt as if you were in
an experiment with the Lord?
I learned…

“One marking” became known to me as I abandoned, as I surrendered completely to Him. That marker was the “creative inner life” that sprung up from an “amazing Well.” This Well has a continual Source—the Holy Spirit—that has flowed within me like water with a “perennially freshness.”

This amazing gift is available to all. It comes with the acceptance that one’s life will be engineered by God. A life abandoned to Him will find this Well—the Holy Spirit—springing up continually within them. Will life always go well and all worries vanish? No, it hasn’t for me. But when going through those tough times, I’ve found I’ve never been alone. And deep down within my heart has been joy of His presence despite the shed tears at the time.

Oswald’s devotions, as throughout the months before, continued to drive the narrative. I detected an amazing realization when looking at the timing of when this Dream Year began at the end of March and the manner in which Oswald’s devotions immediately spoke at the moment. On the first day after the halt the Lord prompted me to begin on that day’s devotion and as the days went on, I realized I was to read the next devotion each day going forward.

The uncanny connections had remained just that for these nine months creating greater understanding with whatever else the Lord brought to my attention. He began this experiment of dreams, devotions and other God-Moments at exactly the moment to give me the greatest impact to grow and deepen. By not beginning the devotional on January 1 but on the day—March 31, it would circle back to the same exact date with what I needed each day through this year of dreams.

An example connected with what the Lord told me after this last dream, “Cruise to Nowhere”: “All I need is Him—all I need is Jesus.” On the day as I worked on the review, a devotion re-spoke to me as it affirmed what it meant to put my all in the hands of Jesus. He was again telling me, “Come and follow Me.”³ _{[John 12:26]}

Turning to Oswald’s current devotion, it continued what I had just found in the review. If l did just that—got out of the boat and went with Him, He’d use the trial that had dumbfounded me to teach me when alone with Him. He’d get me through it so understanding came at the right time and His perennial Well—His Spirit—would be with me.⁴

When God has gotten us alone, He’ll clear up what we’ve misunderstood so we grasp His purposes. “It’s slow work, so slow it takes God all time and eternity” to do it.⁵ One place He’s gotten me alone has been in dreams; these have taken me step by step or by a degree at a time through His purposes.

Each dream and the resources that came before and after have connected as the Lord has made His presence known. They’ve created pictures in my mind of the way the Lord has been working. Together, they’ve merged to create a general illustration of His will for my life and Mani has been included in significant ways throughout them.

As Part 4 ended and Part 5 began, the Lord’s “holy experiment” took me “through the crooks and crannies” of my character while He also showed me His Nature and Character. Jesus had purposely got me alone through the heartbreak over the relationship with Mani. _{[See Intro 2.]} And how He worked with me was for me alone. The only thing I could expect God to be clear in my own soul was that I couldn’t understand another person’s soul or how He’d work with them. I must not compare.

I’ve pondered and looked deep within to see whether any “fussy notions” or “fussy ideas” about my heart were there. I don’t believe so for if I had, I wouldn’t be able to get alone with Him. He’s not let my doubts and insecurities get in the way of hearing Him. If that was His only way of doing things, we’d not have connected; yet we have. I’ve been open to His leading even when I’ve debated and got weary. As I’ve reached out to Him even in doubt, He’s made Himself known to me.⁶

Not only did the Lord not let me go, He did not let me go down the road of thinking about what was happening to Mani in reality. This Journey had come about because of the relationship the Lord had initiated in my life mentioned above. He had Mani and me reconnect for a few years and then allowed it to halt. It was then all these dreams and other GMs began that produced this year of dreams.

There has been no way I could determine how the Lord has worked with Mani over the months. When I’ve begun to think about it, all I’ve heard has been “Trust Me.” As I wrote this He sent me a GM through the song, “You Are.” The words spoke about what I needed to hang onto: “When all I see are broken memories, You are the Light in the dark.”⁷

I’ve heard the small still Voice: He’s told me on quite a few occasions, to “trust Him… to come… to let go.” I’ve followed the prompts when I’ve gotten them. Oswald wrote: “Whether I listen for God’s call or not depends upon my disposition”. That being so, my disposition must always be open and willing to hear the Lord.

For the Lord has spoken often. He did when He prompted me to “think about the man coming into my life.” He then gave me the DREAM: “Man Is Mani” to show me what happens when He has spoken. He has come through with what He speaks. The phrase –“Many are called, few are chosen _{[Matt. 22:14]}—has everything to do with what we’ve not chosen if God calls us.” I chose to hear the Lord, thus, I’ve been chosen.

The state of my ears has been willing to hear; I’ve taken note of what He’s shown me, of all He’s put in front of me.⁸ Because I’ve been determined to hear, I believe I’ve come into a much firmer and more open relationship with the Lord and do hear even when it’s been the slightest of whispers. Something I must intentional continue to seek.

I chose to follow up on the Lord’s call and the dream and connected with Mani. Thus, in essence, I said “Here am I, send me.” _{[Isa. 6:8]} And as I enjoyed the experience of the relationship with Mani for several years and came to love him dearly, I then had to deal with the fallout after it halted. I could not have imagined what the Lord had in store for me when it was over. This next dream gave a hint of the difficult side of His call.

I found myself struggling to breathe and had pain in my chest. I had never felt anything like it and wondered if I was having a heart attack. It was while in prayer to the Lord on what to do I awakened and found that I had been dreaming it all. In the next blog, I will share the spiritual dream meanings when having such an experience.

Depth, Drive, and Direction Challenge: Have you listened for the Lord’s Voice? If you have, did you follow through with what He said to you? Whatever it was, would be the beginning of the purpose He has created just for you. In the updated version of My Utmost…, it describes this further: Everyone in the world has been called by God. Those who have accepted “a relationship with God through Jesus Christ” will find their dispositions—their “spiritual conditions”— have been radically changed as their “ears are opened.”⁹

As were Isaiah’s ears when hearing the Lord ask the question—“Who will go with Us?”— to all those who were listening, we can answer that same question—“Here am I, send me.” _{[Isaiah 6:8]} It is with full freedom that we chose whether we will go or not when we hear Him ask the question. Isaiah had the freedom of choice and he chose to follow the Lord’s leading. Have you heard the Lord’s Voice? If so, what are you doing about it? If not and you want to hear Him, ask Him. For He desires you as He desires everyone to have the desire to hear Him.

¹Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1935:136.
²Ibid. 287
³Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 1992:6.13
⁴Ibid. 1.13
⁵Chambers. 1935:12
⁶Ibid. 13
⁷“You Are” Lyrics.com, STANDS4 LLC, 2024. “You Are Lyrics.” Accessed February 19, 2024. https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/29958061/Colton+Dixon/You+Are
⁸Chambers. 1935:14
⁹Chambers 1992:1.17
¹⁰ Sallman, Warner. “Thine Is the Kingdom and Power and Glory”, 1958. from Seeking His Presence.” Anderson, IN: Warner Press, Inc. 2022.

Featured photo credit: Shreesha Bhat

**The perils of using a blog to share something that is more like a chapter book makes it hard for you as the reader to connect all the parts! Here is a short synopsis.
Dreams: These dreams came over a period of a year and were all connected. I had no rogue dreams during this time. In Intro 2, it describes how the Lord gave me a dream that played out initiating a relationship with a man I’ve called “Mani” in these blogs. The rest of the dreams came during the year after the halt in a three-year relationship.
DINGs: The sound from my phone that meant “Mani” had connected by text or through a game we had played together almost since the beginning of our relationship. While he was from my area, he had moved a couple hours away several years before the relationship. After the halt in it, he wanted to stay connected so we did throughout the year of the dreams. He connected many of the days and sometimes multiple times. Only the DINGs in which the Lord’s presence was sensed became GMDINGs. I was given a vision of this DING during the dream year that gave greater insight. [See Part 3.4a; Part 3.4b; Part 3.4c and Part 3.4d]
Oswald: A reference to Oswald Chambers and his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. On the day of the first dream in the year of dreams, the Lord prompted me to begin reading his devotional beginning with that day which was March 31. Phenomenal connects to the dreams and to the issues I was addressing were present throughout the year. It kept me grounded through the Word and prayer as I went through this experience—a God-engineered Journey.

Midway in the dream year, a couple of Oswald’s devotions challenged me to “spill out” what the Lord had been giving me. Several events prompted by the Lord opened the way for me to begin doing so through this blog. Those ‘See Part so and so’ within the blogs are paths back to a blog that will give added understanding.

My prayer is that you will be blessed as you read for all glory goes to the Lord as I am just His vessel to pour it out.
Michele

**A synopsis is given at the end of this blog, to add greater understanding to what role dreams and DINGs and Oswald play throughout these blogs.

Probe 1: As I reviewed “Cruise to
Nowhere,”another revelation came.
When sitting in the ship’s darkness,
it represented how the Lord was
using darkness in my Journey.
Have you been in the shadow of
the hand of God—in darkness—
as to what you could expect next?
I learned…

The confusion on this Journey was purposeful on the Lord’s part as He engineered it. My spiritual life was stretched uniquely by His intentional darkness. While He often made His presence known so I knew He was behind it all, I struggled to understand His purposes.

A devotion early in the Journey, described this stretching. God had an aim, a purpose, in mind for me; He’d continue to stretch me until that purpose was in sight and then let go so the arrow flew exactly where He wanted it. While being stretched, I was to “maintain my intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.” Because I knew Him, I was to trust I could count on Him even though I didn’t see or understand what He was doing.¹

While I maintained my relationship with Jesus, it was not easy to accept the unknown and what reality seemed to be in comparison to what He was showing me through the dreams and other resources. Once aware darkness was central in the “Cruise to Nowhere” dream, I sought out more about Oswald’s teachings on clouds, darkness, and shadows as ways God will use to get our attention back on Him.

Darkness in a dream represents what it does in waking life: confusion, having to deal with the unknown, hard situations. All well beyond what I’d be able to comprehend. When called by God, it meant going without knowing or understanding as Abraham when called by God. _{[Heb 11:8-9]} Overwhelming me, I wondered how was I to process it all?

Oswald’s devotions on darkness were similar in meaning to the dream. The ship represented how the Lord navigated the Journey as it accurately described all was out of my control. This darkness—lack of control—felt impenetrable in waking life; confusion and misunderstanding persisted as I wondered where the Lord had me headed.

I noticed the Lord had been re-speaking to me as I read His Word; and it was becoming “spirit and life” to me.² While I gained in my relationship with the Lord, a cloud or shadow of the Almighty still remained. I struggled to understand where, what, how and why the Lord had me at this time, place and condition.

Oswald gave me perspective on a reason with great possibility. He explained it was something we all must experience at times; life can be harsh and we can’t escape it if we want to grow in the Lord’s will.

He said: “No one can tell you where the shadow of the Almighty is, you must find it out for yourself… Intensity of communion is not in feelings, emotions or in special places, but in quiet, fixed, confident centering on God. Never allow anything to hinder you from being in the place where your spiritual life is maintained.”³

I did have tenacity in waking life and it played out in the dream as I sought to find light—a window or door to a walkway. And while I didn’t find any, I didn’t quit. After descending into the ship’s bowels and saw the little boat, I found nothing unique about it, yet, I was drawn to it. When looking into the dimness, I could tell other people were sitting within it.

As I entered the small boat, I sat down in the dark within the darkness of the larger ship. I didn’t say a word to the others as I sat and listened. Perhaps, they also had sought windows or exit doors and discovered what I had: that there were none.

Eventually in the stillness, I heard the quiet voice of a woman speaking to herself and, thus, discovered the truth of the cruise. A tiny hole in the side of the boat revealed light and that light then revealed we were still tied to the dock. We weren’t rushing ahead towards the exotic places but were going nowhere.

While it was with the “simple way of words” that led me to see the Truth over the way of the world, it was this God-given dream that gave the Lord the platform to make His will known to me after awakening from it. I didn’t need the boat to navigate my way; I was to get out and He would walk with me and I with Him. _{[See Part 4.9a.]}

Oswald’s take on darkness: “Whenever God gives a vision to a saint, He puts him as it were in the shadow of His hand and the saint’s duty is to be still and listen.” Not an easy thing to do! And one into which I’ve had to grow and still am. I was to “wait for God to send the light. When God gives a vision and darkness follows, He’ll make me in accordance with the vision He’s given if I wait His time… [My] confidence is to be in God Himself, not in His blessings.”⁴

Probe 2: Oswald described
darkness put upon us by the
Lord can come in several ways.
Our part in whatever the way
is to be still and listen—to wait.
When in the “dark,” have you
remained still and listened?
I learned…

The Lord will purposely put us in the “valley of the shadow” to provide “time to reflect; this would be when we learn to praise God for the valley”into which He has put us. It’s possible our soul can find greater “communion with” Him. The days of the “green pastures” would not be what furthers us the most although they “have value.” It will be the “days of stress and cloud,” of perplexity, that further our character the most.⁵

The Lord has said: I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness—secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name. _{[Is 45:3 NLT]}

God “puts us through the discipline of darkness to teach us to heed Him. Song birds are taught to sing in the dark, and we are put into the shadow of His hand until we learn to hear Him.” We’re to be watchful for where God would put us while in the dark. Then when in the dark we must “keep our mouths shut,” wait and embrace the “discipline of darkness as a time to listen.”

As we listen in the dark, “God will give [us] a very precious message for someone else when [we] get into the light.”⁶ The things I tell you in the dark you must say in the daylight, and the things you hear in your private ear you must proclaim from the housetops. _{[Mt 10:27 JBP]}

These truths I experienced while on this Journey were what the Lord indicated I was to share. Presently, they are being shared through this blog, “Dreams, DINGs, and Oswald.”

At times we must be taken out of the “excess of light” and put in darkness; not for sin or disobedience but to gain a “fuller knowledge of darkness as a necessary side to fellowship with God.” Something He desires to have with us. It will include a sense of mystery for that “means being guided in obedience by Someone who knows more than we do.⁷

“Clouds are a sign He is there… God does not come in clear shining.” He doesn’t necessarily give us trials to teach us something but “wants us to unlearn something.” It has to do with our relationship with Him. God’s providence always includes a connect to how we get “to know Him”. In darkness, we find out if we know Jesus and only see Him.⁸

This dream directly addressed this darkness or cloud He instigated in my life. The times of confusion were not because I did anything wrong. Instead, it was to get at fully what He has intended for me—what His purpose has been for my life.

Oswald warned “even love itself has to wait in pain and tears for the blessing of fuller communion.” I admit I’ve questioned during this Journey whether He cared about how this affected my life. My hope was to learn to “hang on in confidence” in Him even when He looked “completely shrouded.” For it’s common when a cloud has come over one’s life, that a shadow has also been cast covering the “face of the Father.”

I was to stay with this Journey, trust He’d answer in His time, and “stand off in faith believing what Jesus said was true. While in the meantime [I] didn’t understand what God was doing.” Thus, waiting in expectation that eventually, He’d clearly reveal and justify what He permitted. There was work He must do that was much greater than my needs alone.⁹

Reading C.S. Lewis, I mused on how much easier life could be with the “constitution of a lily” and not be anxious about misinterpreting or making mistakes and more.¹⁰ But then, as a lily I wouldn’t get to experience God coming into me and carrying out those impossible instructions only He can do. And then experience the phenomenal “treasures” of His presence in the God-Moments, GMs, such as this dream that could only be God-orchestrated.

Such as a GMDING, I shared in an earlier blog that spoke not only to the dreams before this one but also to the darkness in this cruise to nowhere. It came as I journaled: My job is to bring every thought and imagination captive or God will run right across the natural life in me—DING. As Mani connected, the Lord made His presence known. He showed me the tools in my “dream pocket” would bring me into sync, into alignment, with Him. The darkness in this dream would be overcome when aligned with His Light. _{[See Part 4.8b]}

I read a quote sent to me accredited to Corrie ten Boom; not finding a reference, I chose not to state the exact quote but summarize it. I was drawn to it because in its few short words, I saw three messages the Lord had given me in three recent dreams—storm, valley and darkness. It described faith develops when we can praise Him in the storm, when we determine to trust Him while in the valley and when willing to follow His lead while in the dark.

The first dream, also about a boat, connected to the present dream. I searched for a boat as billowing waves crashed around me. I held a firm grip on the railings as I sensed the Lord’s presence and His strength. In the dream I praised His presence as the billowing waves washed over me. _{[See Part 3.14b.]} I wanted that kind of faith in waking life while I navigated this God-engineered Journey.

A second dream connected to experiencing faith. When exploring the fortress in a recent dream, it took me to great heights with a striking panoramic view—a mount experience when the Lord made His presence known. But then I experienced the stark difference when returning downward to the valley. I realized my need for trust in Him to grow within me as most of life is spent in the valley—to live out what I gain when on the mount. _{[See Part 4.7b]}

In this present dream, I found myself in the dark as I realized the cruise was going nowhere. After awakening, the Lord spoke to me and gave purpose for the dream. I was to step out of the boat, out of anything that held me back, and follow Jesus alone as He’d light the way a step at a time.

Depth, Drive, and Direction Challenge: I’ve had to ask myself often if I’ve been willing to recklessly abandon all or have held something back when I’ve heard His Voice? It was easy to follow through when the Lord initiated the relationship with Mani through the prompt and dream. But would I have jumped so eagerly into it if I had known the future—that the relationship would be halted in a way that would break my heart? _{[See Intro 2.]} I hope I would have been obedient and followed through but I don’t know. That is why Oswald was adamant that we stay in the present, our eyes on Jesus and obey by following through with what He has asked us to do.

How would you respond if the Lord spoke to you after some kind of experience had left you in the dark, or in a storm, or other kinds of chaos? Will you praise Him, live in obedience down in the valley, and follow Him through the darkness? What help do you need in any of these areas? Ask the Lord to see you through; He is willing and waiting.

¹Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1935 MUH:129
²Ibid. 3.
³Chambers, Oswald, [D.W. Lambert. ed.] Still Higher for His Highest. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. 1970:27.
⁴Chambers, 1935:19
⁵Chambers, 1970:91.
⁶Chambers, 1935:32.
⁷Partner, Daniel, ed. The Oswald Chambers Daily Devotional Bible. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers. 1992:44.
⁸Chambers, 1935:2.12.
⁹ Ibid. 256.
¹⁰Hooper, Walter, ed. The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Vol. III. London and New York:HarperCollins, 2006.

Featured photo credit: Shreesha Bhat

**The perils of using a blog to share something that is more like a chapter book makes it hard for you as the reader to connect all the parts! Here is a short synopsis.
Dreams: These dreams came over a period of a year and were all connected. I had no rogue dreams during this time. In Intro 2, it describes how the Lord gave me a dream that played out initiating a relationship with a man I’ve called “Mani” in these blogs. The rest of the dreams came during the year after the halt in a three-year relationship.
DINGs: The sound from my phone that meant “Mani” had connected by text or through a game we had played together almost since the beginning of our relationship. While he was from my area, he had moved a couple hours away several years before the relationship. After the halt in it, he wanted to stay connected so we did throughout the year of the dreams. He connected many of the days and sometimes multiple times. Only the DINGs in which the Lord’s presence was sensed became GMDINGs. I was given a vision of this DING during the dream year that gave greater insight. [See Part 3.4a; Part 3.4b; Part 3.4c and Part 3.4d]
Oswald: A reference to Oswald Chambers and his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. On the day of the first dream in the year of dreams, the Lord prompted me to begin reading his devotional beginning with that day which was March 31. Phenomenal connects to the dreams and to the issues I was addressing were present throughout the year. It kept me grounded through the Word and prayer as I went through this experience—a God-engineered Journey.

Midway in the dream year, a couple of Oswald’s devotions challenged me to “spill out” what the Lord had been giving me. Several events prompted by the Lord opened the way for me to begin doing so through this blog. Those ‘See Part so and so’ within the blogs are paths back to a blog that will give added understanding.

My prayer is that you will be blessed as you read for all glory goes to the Lord as I am just His vessel to pour it out.
Michele

**A synopsis is given at the end of this blog, to add greater understanding to what role dreams and DINGs and Oswald play throughout these blogs.

Probe 1: Oswald clarified what it
meant for the Lord to take us
“through the crooks and crannies”
of our character—of who we are.
The Lord used this to affirm what
I was to learn from the dream.
Has the Lord used an experience
of yours to expound clarity?
I learned…

Later on the same day as the dream, I contemplated what the Lord revealed to me that had clarified His purpose for it: I was to step out of the boat and walk with Him—with Jesus—on, in, and through whatever was before me. He again spoke to me to clarify what I needed to do. He indicated the morning revelation that then was affirmed with the GMDING had been with great intention and distinct purpose to confirm what He wanted me to gain from the dream. _{[See Part 4.9a.]}

After this second encounter with the Lord, I had a chance to read through Oswald’s devotion for the day. Jesus would expound things to us like He did with His disciples so we’d understand. _{[Mark 4:34]} The way it was described sounded much like my trip down to the dark bowels of the ship to get the answers I needed in the dream. Jesus would take me “through the crooks and crannies” of who I was. Then, He would “reveal to” me all that had “been harboring” within me as His grace did its work. “God will keep narrowing [me] in until He gets [me] alone.”¹

Oswald’s words became another amazing connect. It was with the “Cruise to Nowhere” dream and then what the Lord told me I needed to do—to get out of the boat, to go with Him, just the two of us. This upped the wonder about these connections. God was very much into the details. Not only in what Oswald said but often with other resources before and after a dream.

This created an extraordinary composite that was growing and shaping me in His “workshop.” The way everything connected from the dream forward gave evidence how the Lord was always very purposeful in what had taken place; I needed to trust what I was experiencing . The GMDING when in prayer after the dream attested to that.

I was to get off that boat. He promised He’d go with me as I walked out into the waters, into the wilderness. “It’s slow work, so slow it takes God all time and eternity to make a man and woman after His own purpose.” All battles not just mine affect those purposes and must be fought before Him.

It was the Lord who must take us through “the crooks and crannies” at how ignorant we are about our own selves. It could be this cruise dream was a wake up call about those places within me that hadn’t helped me go forward. Did the Lord need to “shine His spotlight into my depths” to make me aware of what He found “harboring” within?”

Because I can’t know myself and only my Creator does, would I learn when He’s gotten me alone it wouldn’t be like the dream of no windows? Instead could I expect a “window” of insight, of knowledge, about myself provided to prepare me for the future? Thus, I’d know I was being made into a woman after the Lord’s purposes. For He would “make me spell out my own soul” that would continue to develop “on through eternity.”²

As I pondered what more the Spirit could possibly be wanting me to gain from this dream, I thought about its order in the year of dreams. Why at this time?

Admittedly. this Journey has been a challenge from the beginning. I’ve often wondered why the Lord initiated a relationship with Mani that began with a promise and a dream. How He did it was so amazing I fully trusted Him as I went into the relationship. Yet, He then let it halt; I felt at times like I’d been dragged through a heartbreak to which I had to fight to not succumb to it while finding no healing for my heart. _{[See Intro 2.]}

With all the energy and time the Lord had put into all these dreams and insights with the DINGs and other God-moments, or GMs, I hoped He was teaching me not just for the distant future but for something in the now. Perhaps I wouldn’t have to wait for eternity to see the mystery revealed but would get to see it unfold in my lifetime.

The four dreams, that came during the three days with “Cruise to Nowhere” as the last, distinctly prepared me for the transition between Part 4 and Part 5. They drew together the reality I must face in the Journey at this time while reminding me of the Lord’s presence with me. The Lord was giving me what I needed to embolden my determination, my tenacity, to get through the rest of this Journey and that would not be an easy task.

However, to follow Oswald’s suggestion, I must not use my commonsense to engage in God’s engineered providential will. I was to get out of the boat, let go to Him, follow His lead, and walk. Unlike what happened while on the boat, I won’t go it alone as the Lord will go with me. Each step I take with Jesus, He will help me take the next step forward.

My prayer at this time was that Jesus would “walk on the chaos of my life”³ so a time would come when I’d have enough understanding to know peace and calm. Through the Journey, He’s revealed what has been “harboring” in me. And I prayed He’d continue to do so as needed. He got me alone through this dream to show me the only Way was through Him; any other way would lead to dead-ends as the cruise was—with no outlook and going nowhere.

Probe 2: As with all, I’ve been called.
While many—all people on earth—
are called, few are chosen.
Who are chosen, those who have
chosen to come into a relationship
with God through Jesus Christ.
Have you chosen to be in a
relationship with the Lord?
I learned…

Our “spiritual condition changes” when we’ve entered into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is then the Lord opens our senses to receive Him and with our ears, our minds and hearts, we hear His call. We hear Him ask us: “Come, follow Me” just as He called His disciples.⁴ _{[Mt 4:19]} I’ve heard His call and I’ve chosen to walk with Him.

Later on this day while editing something I had journaled a few months before, I recognized its connection to Oswald’s devotion. In the editing of “To be a living sacrifice,” I wanted to personalize it to “become.” A GMDING came as I typed: I can be—DING—come a “living sacrifice—the kind the Lord will accept. _{[Ro 12:1]} Not only was the Lord present with me, He had me working on this Scripture when Mani connected.

While this became a profound DING, what followed these words that I’d prayed through before typing was what got to my soul that day making it an extraordinary GMDING: “If willing to give over the right of self to the Lord (as in the dream I had the day before suggested) He will make a holy experiment out of you. God’s experiments always succeed.”

It wasn’t until after the year of dreams and I had developed the dream format to give greater clarity to the interpretation of dreams that the connections came together. Clearly the Lord wanted me to experience this GMDING and the insight it highlighted as a God-orchestrated connection to the meaning of the present dream.

The insight I was given or perhaps a revelation would be a better description goes on to say “The one mark …is this amazing wellspring of original life all the time… It’s God Who engineers circumstances… abandon to Jesus and come when He says “Come with me” _{[Mk 1:17]}.

By realizing the cruise ship was going nowhere, I was able to change direction when awakening to the realization I needed nothing but to “Come” when Jesus called me. This was all I needed to know! And the Lord made sure I did as He again connected to say: “Come and follow Me.”⁵

The ability to hear the Lord’s call would only come if His nature was within us. For the call was “the expression of God’s nature, not our nature.” These “strands … of God providentially at work” would be recognized as we heard the “the threading of God’s voice in some particular matter.” We must realize no one else will be able to hear it or help us with it.⁶

The phone in my “Dream Pocket” a few days before was a reminder of how the Lord has given me the call I heard that no one else had heard. _{[See Part 4.8a.]} He’s woven “the thread of His call through” my life in such a way that I alone can distinguish it.⁷

This threading of His Voice was like the “scarlet thread” that the Lord used in a set of dreams a few months before. It had indicated to me He was doing something specific in my life that verified the connections I was beginning to identify.

As He wove His presence through my life while on the Journey He engineered for me, I began to call these times with Him as God-Moments, or GMs. These were the dreams, Oswald’s devotions, certain DINGS from Mani, and many other resources such as the novel, The Scarlet Thread, that created the connection with the threading of His Voice. _{[See Part 3.2c and 3.3c.]} Each moved me forward while on the Journey that I could only see a step at a time.

“Cruise to Nowhere” brought me to a point in my Journey where all that had been put within me could only become the more the Lord had for me if I was willing to step out with Him alone. The call began when the Lord initiated the reconnect with Mani. It then continued when the relationship halted and the year of dreams began.

While He had prepared me ahead of time by introducing me to my dream coach, Marilyn, several years before, she could only go so far with helping me to recognize aspects of the Journey and encourage me. A wonderful gift from the Lord, she kept me on track and gave direction.

Then when the Lord took me beyond where Marilyn could go until I had gone there myself and experienced it, she kept me grounded. She then could help me make connections and understand the dream meanings in relationship to where the Lord was leading me. As I’ve said before, this Journey has been like nothing I’ve ever encountered.

Depth, Drive, and Direction Challenge: Oswald continued the thoughts on the need to be alone with God in the next devotion. He listed a variety of experiences—“suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness” and more. It is when we have come to the end of our resources that He can begin to teach us.⁸

To be alone with the “Divine Teacher” is to not only receive absolute truth but to be able to question what we struggle to understand as the Lord’s disciples did. Jesus told them the Spirit of truth would come and what the Spirit shared would be that which He had received from Jesus. Jesus went on to tell them: “All that belongs to the Father is Mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever He receives from Me.” _{[John 16:13-14 NLT]}

When we have questions, the Lord has provided His Spirit as the “Exponent [Representative] of Jesus Christ’s statements, and He will test” what we ask as to whether it is truth or not. What and how He shares with us will “always be amazingly and profoundly simple.”⁹ Have you come to the end of your own resources and let the Lord teach you? If you have you’ve been finding truth, then keep going forward. If you haven’t, what will it take for you to begin to get alone with the Lord?

¹Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1935:12
²Ibid.12
³Ibid. 210.
⁴Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 1992:1.14
⁵Chambers, 1935:165
⁶Ibid. 16
⁷Chambers, 1992:1.16
⁸Ibid. 1.13
⁹Chambers, Oswald, [D.W. Lambert. ed.] Still Higher for His Highest. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. 1970:41.
¹⁰Telephone operator: (Online 3.10.24) http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Tjn2n1CMss0/TTsJZhevCyI/AAAAAAAAFXA/1-vG2jiLL80/s1600/telephone_operator1.jpg

**The perils of using a blog to share something that is more like a chapter book makes it hard for you as the reader to connect all the parts! Here is a short synopsis.
Dreams: These dreams came over a period of a year and were all connected. I had no rogue dreams during this time. In Intro 2, it describes how the Lord gave me a dream that played out initiating a relationship with a man I’ve called “Mani” in these blogs. The rest of the dreams came during the year after the halt in a three-year relationship.
DINGs: The sound from my phone that meant “Mani” had connected by text or through a game we had played together almost since the beginning of our relationship. While he was from my area, he had moved a couple hours away several years before the relationship. After the halt in it, he wanted to stay connected so we did throughout the year of the dreams. He connected many of the days and sometimes multiple times. Only the DINGs in which the Lord’s presence was sensed became GMDINGs. I was given a vision of this DING during the dream year that gave greater insight. [See Part 3.4a; Part 3.4b; Part 3.4c and Part 3.4d]
Oswald: A reference to Oswald Chambers and his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. On the day of the first dream in the year of dreams, the Lord prompted me to begin reading his devotional beginning with that day which was March 31. Phenomenal connects to the dreams and to the issues I was addressing were present throughout the year. It kept me grounded through the Word and prayer as I went through this experience—a God-engineered Journey.

Midway in the dream year, a couple of Oswald’s devotions challenged me to “spill out” what the Lord had been giving me. Several events prompted by the Lord opened the way for me to begin doing so through this blog. Those ‘See Part so and so’ within the blogs are paths back to a blog that will give added understanding.

My prayer is that you will be blessed as you read for all glory goes to the Lord as I am just His vessel to pour it out.
Michele

**A synopsis is given at the end of this blog, to add greater understanding to what role dreams and DINGs and Oswald play throughout these blogs.

Probe 1: Awakening in the morning
after “Dream Pocket” and “NOT…”,
Oswald’s devotion spoke to them.
I was only to respond in obedience
and never dictate to God what I’d do
or not do when others are involved.
How do you respond when you
realize His call will affect others?
I learned…

If I chose to obey whatever the Lord’s will was for my life, then I wasn’t to dictate what I’d allow to happen. If it affected others, I was to trust He’d see them through for their good and for mine as well.¹ This was why I was never to imagine what the outcome would be when it came to the God’s purposes for this Journey He engineered. I was to stay in the present and focus on what He put in front of me—revealed to me—at the time.

This devotion led into this next dream, “Cruise to Nowhere.” In this dream, it spoke to what it would look like if I sought my own ways to bring me relief, to get me to the other side of this Journey so I could get on with life. The Lord used the dream and His Voice after it to show me in an invaluable way to trust that He was with me and would see me through it.

The dream began after a huge cruise ship had embarked with engines full throttle; we were on our way to the many exotic places described by the cruise brochure. I had chosen this cruise because of those promised exotic places. The cost had been quite a stretch but I planned to make the best of it.

An amusement ride within the cruise ship gave a preview of all the exotic stops that would be made. After viewing it and fully excited about the places we would visit, the rush of the ship as it went through the water drew me to seek an outside walkway or a window. I wanted to look out over the vast sea as the ship plowed through it.

I noticed early on there was the appearance of no doors or windows to the outer decks on the levels I had already experienced. I determined to find an outer deck so began to check out each level upward. The next few levels had shops and cafes but all of them were inside.

After checking several more levels of the ship, I went downward and found my way through a darkened area with little light. I could see the outline of what looked like a smaller boat that would be used for an excursion. Several people were sitting in it so I joined them. I sat down to see what would happen. After a while, a woman nearby wistfully commented how thankful she was for the little bit of water she could see and enjoy.

I went over to see what it was that she enjoyed so much. Through a small hole in the side of the ship, the dock could be seen. We weren’t going anywhere but were still tied to the original dock. The whole voyage was a simulation thus the reason for no windows or doors to outer decks.

On awakening from the dream, I wrote down all I could remember that had taken place. As I’ve always done, I prayed through the journaling about the dream. I asked for insight as it had several interesting twists and turns to it.

The cruise ship would have the same spiritual meaning as the boat in the dream, “Standing Firm in Crashing Waves.” A boat indicated how I was navigating my life. In that dream a few weeks before, the boat was missing and I never found it. _{[See Part 3.14c.]}

After what took place in this dream, I wondered if the Lord was showing me I needed to do a ‘check’ on how I was navigating my life. How was I attempting to navigate and work my way through this Journey? The earlier boat was a small personal boat; this was a big boat but it did not fulfill what was needed either.

After reading and praying through all that I had journaled, the Lord spoke to me about getting me alone. What He said would complete the resolution of the dream. He said: “You don’t need a boat. You just need to step out and onto the water and walk through with Me—Jesus. I will get you to the other side of this mysterious wilderness.”

When finished writing down what He said, I closed my journal and got out of bed while continuing to pray about what the Lord had just revealed; I asked Him to verify if what I heard was correct—DING. I went back to my phone and checked it as I couldn’t believe Mani had connected at that time of day. I already was in the presence of the Lord and then to have Mani join us with this DING at this profound time on an even more profound insight created a profound GMDING.

All I could do was praise the Lord and claim the promise He had given and that was His presence would ever be with me. I needed to step out with Him. I must concede to only Him at the helm of my life.

Probe 2: The exotic excursions
gave an illusion that stress
would be relieved, hope revived
and happiness gained.
But a cruise to nowhere created
very different dream meanings.
Have you sought happiness that wanes
rather than real joy that never ends?
I learned…

This dream, “Cruise to Nowhere,” defined my life as to how it was navigated at the time; where and how I felt the Lord had me as He engineered this Journey. A cruise to an exotic place would temporarily create hope and happiness. Through the symbol meanings, I was shown something temporary.

Would that be what I would want from life—something that gave temporary enjoyment or something eternal? This dream set the stage for God’s supernatural way to collide with the commonsense or world’s way to obtain that which only God can do.

While in the dream I was still optimistic when I went down into the depths and found the smaller boat. I joined the group already seated there in the ship’s belly. It was in the darkness as I sat in the stillness and quiet that I learned the truth. It was through the small hole that the light revealed the dock to which we were still attached. It was all a lie.

How often is this the case? Until the Lord’s Light shines in the darkness we don’t see a truth we’ve needed to embrace. Or He must check us as to what is motivating the direction we’ve been heading as we’ve tried to follow our own way to fulfill His purpose not recognizing we are ignoring His much better way for us to go.

If the purpose of the dream was to reveal the whole voyage as a sham, the Lord wouldn’t have connected in the way He did through the revelation after the dream. While the resolution began in the darkness of the innards of the boat, it continued on at the awakening from the dream when given the revelation.

If I was to get through this Journey, I was to learn it was not with the right vehicle or the right approach or even the right dream; instead, it would only be through Jesus. I must step out of the boat and onto the water and go through it with Him. I would get through to the other side of this mysterious wilderness in no other way but His way.

To gain God’s supernatural way was not something quickly gotten and kept. It would be in His timing. This dream reminded me of years in the past when many of my dreams were sealed elevators and rooms with no doors and windows. I wondered if it reflected any of that. Possibly, but the difference was that in those dreams, I didn’t have a revelation waiting when I woke up. This time I did! I had come a long way. And I wanted it to stay that way!

This dream left me with hope not only because of the revelation of Jesus’ presence but the acknowledgement that all was not lost; still tied to the dock, I could get off the boat. He let me experience that which turned out not to be true; and then to know I had within myself what I needed to discover truth—His Spirit. I could trust His intentions to give me insight and awareness in waking life that would truly build hope which then would lead to real joy.

As Part 4 would end with this dream, it connected to what had prompted the Advent Prayer at the beginning of this part. [See Part 4.1a.] When I’d reach out to Jesus I’d find He was already reaching out for me. If I had stayed enclosed in the boat, I wouldn’t have been able to reach out and He couldn’t have reached in for me.

While the dream itself didn’t have closure as to what I should do, The Lord did upon awakening as He helped me understand the dream. He reached out and revealed His intentions that I’d get to the outcome of this Journey by walking with Him. There is no need for a boat or anything else: only Jesus.

Oswald’s devotion for the day made an amazing connect. The Scripture described what Jesus would do when He and the disciples were alone. It was then He would explain all things to His disciples. _{[Mark 4:34]} Like the disciples, He spoke of the need to get me alone so to reveal each step I was to take.

I was to understand I cannot know myself the way God as my Creator knows me. This prompted me to wonder if this cruise dream was a wake-up call about places within me that don’t help me go forward. That it was a “check” with the Lord “shining His spotlight into my depths”. And another way for Him to reveal what more besides envy could still be found “harboring” in me that His grace would gladly cover³ while still drawing me forward.

I’ve often been “grace-filled” through the God-Moments He has used intentionally to further His plans and purposes to work in and through me. I wondered if I could expect, unlike the dream, that He’d provide “windows” eventually to see the present situation in waking life—see the Big Picture of what He was after. As Part 4 was ending and Part 5 would begin, He started to prepare me for what I’d need to keep me going forward into the future.

Depth, Drive, and Direction Challenge: Oswald asks the question: “Have you ever been alone with God?” Mark described what happened when Jesus was alone with His disciples and in turn what can happen with us.

Jesus used many similar stories and illustrations to teach the people as much as they could understand. In fact, in His public ministry He never taught without using parables; but afterward, when He was alone with His disciples, He explained everything to them. _{[Mark 4:33-34 NLT]}

Jesus will not be explaining things at all times to us but will explain when we are ready to understand. “We have to get rid of the idea that we understand ourselves… The only One Who can understand is God.” He requires us to examine our own selves to discover what could still be within us. It takes “courage” to look within ourselves. It may be what we’ve ignored or perhaps that which we’ve been unaware and not recognized as unacceptable things still lurking within us.

What could be lurking within yourself? Pride, conceit, envy, sloth—laziness, anger, deceit, or….? Until we find what it is within us, the Lord “can’t teach us anything” along that line.⁴ Often, we have not paid attention to those nudges about “misplaced affections or desires.” Yet when God gets us alone and we listen, He will make them clear to us. Have you gotten alone with Jesus and allowed His Light to search out what is deep within you?

I had to do so with envy and some other issues over the months of this Journey. It was a worthwhile, relieving and cleansing experience.

¹Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 1992:1.11
²”The tropical biome”, Eden Project, St Blaise CP by Humphrey Bolton is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0
³Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1935:12
⁴Chambers,1992:1.12

Featured photo credit: Shreesha Bhat

**The perils of using a blog to share something that is more like a chapter book makes it hard for you as the reader to connect all the parts! Here is a short synopsis.
Dreams: These dreams came over a period of a year and were all connected. I had no rogue dreams during this time. In Intro 2, it describes how the Lord gave me a dream that played out initiating a relationship with a man I’ve called “Mani” in these blogs. The rest of the dreams came during the year after the halt in a three-year relationship.
DINGs: The sound from my phone that meant “Mani” had connected by text or through a game we had played together almost since the beginning of our relationship. While he was from my area, he had moved a couple hours away several years before the relationship. After the halt in it, he wanted to stay connected so we did throughout the year of the dreams. He connected many of the days and sometimes multiple times. Only the DINGs in which the Lord’s presence was sensed became GMDINGs. I was given a vision of this DING during the dream year that gave greater insight. [See Part 3.4a; Part 3.4b; Part 3.4c and Part 3.4d]
Oswald: A reference to Oswald Chambers and his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. On the day of the first dream in the year of dreams, the Lord prompted me to begin reading his devotional beginning with that day which was March 31. Phenomenal connects to the dreams and to the issues I was addressing were present throughout the year. It kept me grounded through the Word and prayer as I went through this experience—a God-engineered Journey.

Midway in the dream year, a couple of Oswald’s devotions challenged me to “spill out” what the Lord had been giving me. Several events prompted by the Lord opened the way for me to begin doing so through this blog. Those ‘See Part so and so’ within the blogs are paths back to a blog that will give added understanding.

My prayer is that you will be blessed as you read for all glory goes to the Lord as I am just His vessel to pour it out.
Michele

**A synopsis is given at the end of this blog, to add greater understanding to what role dreams and DINGs and Oswald play throughout these blogs.

Probe 1: The “whole discipline
of life” in Christ is “to enable”
each person who seeks Him
“to enter into the closest [of]
relationships with Jesus Christ.”¹
Have you sought to have the
closest of relationship with Jesus?
I learned…

Jesus prayed with His disciples: “Father of goodness and truth … I’ve made Your Self known to them and I’ll continue to do so that the love which You’ve had for Me may be in their hearts—and that I may be there also.” _{[Jn 17:16 JBP]} Jesus showed the disciples the Father’s love and then foreshadowed the time coming when His love would dwell within their hearts through the Holy Spirit. The closest of relationships with the Lord Jesus—closer than when physically with Him.

As the disciples experienced Him in “thought, heart, and spirit,” we’ve been created with what we need to “enter into this closest of relationships with Jesus Christ,” too. When we choose to seek and “walk more intimately with Him”, it brings Him great joy to be in this relationship.

Years ago, I sought this intimacy and a time came when His love filled my heart. I’ve not known a moment since when He’s not been there. That doesn’t mean I’ve not experienced doubt or uncertainty when my heart’s been broken and lacked understanding. I’ve learned to bring it to the Lord to wrestle through it in front of Him.

The first dream that night, “Dream Pocket,” showed how the Lord’s Spirit had been filling me with what I needed to get through this Journey He had orchestrated for me. My dream coach, Marilyn, confirmed each dream symbol—the phone, keys, and gun—represented an important aspect of the Lord’s workings in me that required the Spirit’s presence.

The phone was my direct one-on-one relationship with the His Spirit; it confirmed my ability to hear Jesus’ Inner Voice. Jesus desired for His disciples and all who would come after to hear Him. It has been through His Inner Voice—His Spirit—to Whom I’ve heard that’s created some of the God-Moments I’ve experienced while on this Journey.

The keys were His purposes and plan—the known and unknown—for my life. These were the insights hidden within me that held new potentials not yet unleashed. They also were the new thoughts and feelings capable of unlocking memories, experiences and knowledge in new ways and depths that had up until the present been repressed within my unconscious. These could only be gained through connection with a direct one-to-one relationship with the Spirit of God.

The gun represented my need to seek protection of what was important to me—the power of truth from God’s Word, It would come through God’s Spirit teaching me as I read His Word. _{[1 Corinthians 2]} Full protection would be available as I allowed the Spirit of God to take control of my life. With the three components of the dream pocketed, this illustrated that “all things come from His hands.”²

Because all things come from His hand and the Spirit communicates this to us, Oswald described our personhood as greater than we can ever completely grasp. “Personality is like an island, we know nothing of the great depths underneath, consequently we can’t estimate ourselves… There is only one Being Who understands us and that is our Creator.”

To “reach [our] real identity,” the person with whom we must merge is the Person, our Creator, through His Spirit.⁴ This was what Jesus meant in His prayer for the disciples and all who’d come after them: “That they may be one, even as We are One.” _{[John 17:22]} The Lord has shown me in my “dream pocket” these symbols— the phone, the keys and gun—represent what I can access for the Lord’s purposes through His Spirit.

As the Lord has taken me through “the disappointment of a wounded pride of intellect…through the disappointment of the heart” and more, I’ve found His Almighty power in, with, and through me. This power has gotten me beyond who I’ve been to whom the Lord wants me to be.⁵

The dream’s resolution was the dream pocket’s tools that connected to actual gifts provided through this God-engineered Journey. I assume He’ll continue to provide as He equips me with new insights and skills for the future.

A GMDING spoke at this time as I copied the following words from the review: “My job is to bring every thought and imagination captive or God will run right across the natural life in me—DING. As Mani connected with me, the Lord made His presence known to highlight what had been given in this dream to get me beyond my natural life. My job was to use the tools in my “dream pocket” in a way that would bring me into sync, into alignment, with Himself.

The “dream pocket” and what it held reminded me of the many moments with the Lord through the GMs I’d been given. He’s dispensed the spiritual resources I’ve needed at the right time to remain in this wilderness Journey. I’ve been given the essentials to stay obedient to the Lord; and because I’ve been obedient to the Lord, He’s provided what I’ve needed.

Probe 2: Paul was sent by Jesus
to open the eyes of those in darkness
so they’d turn from it to the Light.
Paul warned many don’t necessarily
find the much more Jesus has for them—
don’t develop a relationship with Himself.⁶
If you’ve turned from darkness to light,
have you found or not found the more?
I learned …

This devotion came the day before the “Dream Pocket” and the vision, “Not…”. It stopped me in my tracks as a shudder ran through me. I wondered where Mani was at this time. Was he stagnant or had regressed? Or was he hopefully growing in the Lord? For me, since the beginning of this God-engineered Journey, every dream and all the days between have helped me realize my greater need for the intimacy of the Lord. But how had Mani fared? I didn’t know. These thoughts were still on my mind as I went to sleep that night. _{[See Intro 2.]}

After the “Dream Pocket,” the second “night speech” was a Vision: “NOT…” A Voice told me not everything I believed was happening in waking life, in reality, was what it seemed to be. This came at the time when a disturbing wrench had been thrown into my emotional bank and I was wondering how I was to process it. Mani appeared to be going on with his life with or without the Lord’s blessings.

How was this vision, “Not…” to help me discern what the Lord had been giving me in light of what reality seemed to be saying. Had dreams been given to hold me in when uncertainty would inevitably come; when it would again reign and everything seemed tenuous, I could fall back knowing the Lord was with me. To trust He had purpose and a plan that He’d fulfill in His way, in how He determined, and at His timing.

My desire at this time was just to know the Lord’s will, to hear Him. To know how to pray for Mani as he went on with his life and to heal me in a way that would allow me to accept whatever His will.

With few dream symbols—just sleep and the Voice of God—the problem of evaluating this vision would be to see what was happening in real life as it would relate to what the vision was announcing. It was several months before the Lord clarified what He meant in the vision. I believe He waited for me to be in a better place to absorb it.

Greater understanding came after I developed a format for dreams using information from the book by Paul Meier and Robert Wise. Praying while using this format, I found more connections. For this particular vision, the connect was with what Oswald had said the day before the dream about those who turn from the darkness don’t necessarily find the much more Jesus has to offer them. They don’t develop a relationship with Him.

Paul shared these thoughts in his witness before King Agrippa. Turning from darkness was more than opening eyes to be forgiven of sin, but to recognize something we all need—the need for protection from the draw of Satan who will still try to influence our lives. Thus, it was always a great possibility of a struggle to remain set apart for Jesus Christ. _{[Acts 26:17-18]}

We must not turn back to things that don’t reveal God’s presence in us. Paul gave a warning when he wrote since our darkness has been turned to light, we are to live then as children of the Light.

This Light will produce in us everything wholesome and good and true. Let your lives be living proofs of the things which please God. Steer clear of the activities of darkness; let your lives show by contrast how dreary and futile these things are… For light is capable of ‘showing up’ everything for what it really is. It is even possible (after all, it happened with you!) for light to turn the thing it shines upon also into light…Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, And Christ shall shine upon thee. _{[Eph 5:8-14 JBP]}

These words of Oswald and the Scripture led to the prayer I journaled before the dream and vision. It involved Mani’s spiritual health as I wondered if I’d done all I could to live out my faith before him. Had I failed in any way to help him see the need to continue to seek the more from the Lord? I then asked as I did in each prayer that the Lord be with Him. While these dreams came a few hours later, I did not connect them at the time to the prayer.

Later when reviewing these Scriptures, thoughts and prayers, I was prompted to seek information from the book by Paul Meier and Robert Wise, Windows of the Soul. Robert Wise described a dream of his that reminded me immediately of a dream of Mani’s during our relationship. It was about a lion that seemed to be stealthily following him around. Wise described a similar set of dreams he had.

Wise dreamed of a leopard pursuing him. Each time, he would wake up with thoughts that he had just missed becoming that leopard’s lunch. He described conditioning himself to confront the leopard when the next dream came. And he did as he turned toward the leopard, he demanded, “What do you want?” To his surprise, the leopard stopped and said, “I thought you would never stop running. I want to give you leopard power.”⁷

While I had given Mani some good information about what a lion could mean—strength, power, Jesus Christ, courage—I didn’t pursue it further with him. His dream about the lion perhaps was the Lord seeking Mani to turn to Him so He could give him His power—His Spirit. After reading what Robert Wise discovered, I realized the deeper meaning of Mani’s dream could be connected to the reason why the Lord had reconnected us after many years. He was using dreams to speak to Mani as He had used them to speak to me.

The possibility of what the Lord wanted Mani to learn from the dream of lions connected with what Oswald went on to say about salvation that is just the beginning of our life with Christ. Mani had been “brought to the place where he was able to receive something from God on the authority of Jesus Christ, namely the forgiveness of sins.” That is only the beginning—the elemental level.

Oswald went on to share about the second work of grace. One that takes time and comes in increments as we “deliberately give up [our] rights to [ourselves] to Jesus Christ and identify [ourselves] with God’s ministries to others.” This is a process that we develop throughout our lives. A continual turning to the Lord and letting His Spirit lead us.⁸

My life in Christ is still a work in progress as is Mani’s and everyone else living it. As I have continued to turn to the Lord, He has helped me see that no one can ever live up to His demands” on their own. But I can bring these aspects of my natural life—such as “natural love, natural patience, natural purity” to Him. It will be through His Holy Spirit, these natural parts of my life will be brought “into harmony with the life He has placed within [me]. He will exhibit in [me] the virtues that are characteristic of the Lord Jesus.”⁹

Depth, Drive, and Direction Challenge: Paul described light as capable of ‘showing up’ everything for what it really is. It is even possible (after all, it happened with you!) for light to turn the thing it shines upon into light also…_{[Eph 5:8-14 JBP]} Or as other translations describe this light as exposing anything upon which it shines so that all becomes visible.

J. B. Philips noted that if we’ve turned to the Lord and allowed His light to shine on us, it has shown us everything within us for what it really is—the darkness as it really is— and by turning to Him, we allow Him to take away that darkness and then His light shines in and through us. Have you let the Lord shine His light on you so His light shines in and through you? In what ways have you done so? In what ways are you gaining the more the Lord has for you?

¹Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1935:7
²Ibid. 220
³ Bathymetry of Hawaii. Online (2.25.24)https://insider.si.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Southeastern_Hawaiian_islands_with_bathymetry_and_lava_flows_-_oblique_view.jpg
⁴Ibid. 347
⁵Ibid. 12
⁶Ibid. 10
⁷Meier, Paul and Robert Wise. Windows of the Soul. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. 1995:181
⁸Ibid. 10
⁹Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 1992:12.31.

Featured photo credit: Shreesha Bhat

**The perils of using a blog to share something that is more like a chapter book makes it hard for you as the reader to connect all the parts! Here is a short synopsis.
Dreams: These dreams came over a period of a year and were all connected. I had no rogue dreams during this time. In Intro 2, it describes how the Lord gave me a dream that played out initiating a relationship with a man I’ve called “Mani” in these blogs. The rest of the dreams came during the year after the halt in a three-year relationship.
DINGs: The sound from my phone that meant “Mani” had connected by text or through a game we had played together almost since the beginning of our relationship. While he was from my area, he had moved a couple hours away several years before the relationship. After the halt in it, he wanted to stay connected so we did throughout the year of the dreams. He connected many of the days and sometimes multiple times. Only the DINGs in which the Lord’s presence was sensed became GMDINGs. I was given a vision of this DING during the dream year that gave greater insight. [See Part 3.4a; Part 3.4b; Part 3.4c and Part 3.4d]
Oswald: A reference to Oswald Chambers and his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. On the day of the first dream in the year of dreams, the Lord prompted me to begin reading his devotional beginning with that day which was March 31. Phenomenal connects to the dreams and to the issues I was addressing were present throughout the year. It kept me grounded through the Word and prayer as I went through this experience—a God-engineered Journey.

Midway in the dream year, a couple of Oswald’s devotions challenged me to “spill out” what the Lord had been giving me. Several events prompted by the Lord opened the way for me to begin doing so through this blog. Those ‘See Part so and so’ within the blogs are paths back to a blog that will give added understanding.

My prayer is that you will be blessed as you read for all glory goes to the Lord as I am just His vessel to pour it out.
Michele

**A synopsis is given at the end of this blog, to add greater understanding to what role dreams and DINGs and Oswald play throughout these blogs.

Probe 1: I can expect the Lord
to take my imagination and “garrison
it far beyond where [I] can go” when
He has complete command of my life.¹
Has the Lord gained your trust to allow
Him to command your life?
I learned…

Moving in forward progression with the capacity for slip-ups illustrated where I was nine months into this God-engineered Journey. Dreams like the last one, “Golf Balls, Fortress, and Maybe a Wedding,” have been some of those ways the Lord has made known to me those areas Oswald described as “the dim regions of our personality.” Areas we cannot get at on our own. I must trust and allow the Lord to hold my life, to occupy it, so He can then command it.

Oswald explained that God’s “Word’s limitless horizon braces the heart and mind to a new consciousness…it is in Jesus’ Light we see light…Jesus who is the Word of God unfolds to us the revelation of God until we can say… ‘I hold in my hands the Thought of God.’”²

While the Bible has been known to explain “the greatest number of facts,” it alone gives “ground for explaining all the facts.” The Word of God won’t “contradict reason” but instead opens up the soul to greater insight into a whole “new universe of facts to reason.” Thus, it can refresh anyone after a time of “difficulty and perplexity” like the falling of rain on a dry and parched land.³

As others, I’ve neither let my mind nor my feelings “dwell as they should on the massive truths of God.”⁴ It’s not a matter of simply melding my mind with my heart but imperative that the mind of Christ would dwell and work within me. These thoughts on God’s Word dwelling within found their way into the next dream titled, “Dream Pocket.”

This dream and the other two came over the next two nights. Each created new insight into the structure and formation of my Journey. “Golf Balls, Fortress, and Maybe a Wedding,” and these next three would bring Part 4 to a close. Each one along with Oswald, the GMDINGs and other ways the Lord had made Himself known had been in response to what I waited in expectancy through the recent Advent season.

The two next dreams were both very short but had a lot packed into them as well as a defined connection between them. As Master Engineer, the Lord had laid out His Plan that would continue to unfold over the next months.

Also as Master Planner and Provider, I was to trust He’d give me all I needed; my job was to work out what He worked into me. As the Advent message testified, the Lord would give what was needed “a degree at a time” so when the veil has finally lifted, understanding would take place at the proper time._{[See Part 4.1a.]}

The “Dream Pocket” was the first and had four dream symbols: a pocket on my right side, where I put three items of importance to carry with me at all times—a set of keys, a phone and a gun. Once all three were in the pocket, I patted it and could feel each item in there. And I then awakened.

The pocket that held the items was considered a “dream pocket” because of its function. This provided layers of interpretation to the dream. Those items—keys, phone and gun—in that pocket became spiritual tools for my on-going and on-growing spiritual life.

I needed to discover what ways the four symbols represented the God-Moments, or GMs, that had come into my life—the dreams, the DINGs, and spiritual resources. They represented things I needed to grow and hone me; resources needed to draw from deep within when doing God’s will and living out His purpose.

The “dream pocket” held those things that created hope for me to get through this Journey. Due to their symbolic meanings, each item in the pocket would be essential for the Lord’s will for my life.

The phone created availability at my fingertips to be able to communicate with the Lord on a continual basis. It verified that I’d have the ability to hear His Inner Voice—to hear the Spirit Whom I cannot see but have found always present.

An amazing connect would come immediately when in the next dream, or more like a vision, this same night, I heard the Lord’s Voice. To hear His Voice gave immediate evidence that I had an intimate relationship with the Lord Father God. He used it for His creative purposes as a “rereward.” For while drawing me forward, He was coming up behind me as well. When hearing His Voice, I was learning I could trust what He said. _{[See Part 4.6.]}

Keys, common as a dream symbol, represented the potential that was already within me that can be unleashed. They also have the ability to unlock and set repressed dimensions of the personality free.⁵

A gun represents power—the will power to control decisions when armed with the Word of God and all the resources that have pointed to His control and engineering of my circumstances. I’ve found if He’s engineered, He’s also provided. I must be open and welcome what He has intended to take place.

Probe 2: Peter called Jesus the Christ.
Jesus told Peter a time would come
when He’d give him the keys
of the Kingdom of God. _{[Mt 16:19]}
Keys that would unlock truth.
Wouldn’t you want to have
that set of keys within your purview?
I learned…

Those keys would unlock the truth of His Kingdom. Truth of that which has been forbidden in the Kingdom and what would be permitted. A time would come when Peter would be a powerful leader in spreading Jesus’ message about the Kingdom of God.

Once Jesus died, was resurrected, and then ascended back to heaven. Peter and the other disciples had the Holy Spirit to help them discern to open up what was appropriate and shut off what was not appropriate for the Kingdom. And we today have that same Spirit available to us.

With the Holy Spirit leading me, He’s been preparing me for these keys to discern the truth—to open up reality and shut off what is not reality, what is not factual—of what I’ve believed while on this Journey. This has been a continuous giving when He’s found me ready to receive the next one. That which I’ve received has included the potential available within me and what more was needed to build my relationship with the Lord and then follow through in His purposes. The keys, insights on truth, have often come through the God-Moments to direct and hold me to the path He’s given me.

The pocket that held these three tools was on my right side. When something is on the right side, its meaning would indicate one has greater awareness and can express confidence more objectively as to what was taking place outside of one’s self while in the dream. I needed this objectivity as much of this Journey has been cloaked in mystery.

Many dreams while on this Journey have been detailed with the inclusion of the senses of touch and color experienced in waking life. Creating a greater sense of realness to the dream, this has helped me remember more of the details. The keys, phone and gun gave a sense of being very real— the variety, the smoothness, the weightiness—as I held them in my hand and again as I patted my pocket to be assured each was where I had put it.

These tools and the pocket identified the Lord was within me through His Spirit. My assumption was they represented the accumulation of what I’d been given by the Lord throughout this Journey and would continue to strengthen me while going forward in His purpose.

As with all the God-Moments, or GMs, the phone, keys, and gun within the dream pocket would continue to enhance and enlarge——perhaps a degree at a time—the Lord’s plan. My hope was that all I gained was to bring me to the place where this mystery could be unveiled—revealed—and I could accept and handle it as His will for my life.

These tools could be some of the very items the Lord will bring to me when the train has come alongside me as I’ve sat on the tracks. Until the train arrived, I was to wait. To be halted meant there was still more I could get at; I was to continue to reach out to the Lord for the more than I’d already grasped. In the dream, “Halted on RR Tracks,” the Lord’s intentions were for me to be ready in His timing to have what I needed. _{[See Part 4.2a.]}

The God-Moments, the GMs, throughout my Journey have been a lot like the manna, the water and the Lord’s presence He provided the Israelites on their wilderness journey. I had not expected these GMs, when Mani had made the choice to halt the relationship. I thought the Lord would heal me but instead He put me on this wilderness Journey with the GMs—dreams, GMDINGs, Oswald’s devotions, and other ways God has revealed His presence to sustain me. For that reason, they have been an important aspect of my Journey. _{[See Intro 2.]}

The Lord not only pocketed all this within me but has also worked on those parts “folded-up in the depths” of me.⁶ During this Journey, I’ve been made aware of that which has hindered me—envy, slipshodness, and a need to deepen. The Lord has made sure I’ve continued to work through them and now these experiences are pocketed within me.

An obedient life means: If we are living in the light as God is in the light,… the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. _{[I John 1:7]} We have “nothing to hide, nothing folded up” within us. We have the amazing recognition that we are cleansed from all sin.”⁷ When God has searched “me to the inmost recesses of my dreams, my inmost motives and can find nothing to blame,” then I can claim through Him I’ve been “readjusted at the Cross.”⁸

I’ve faced the real nature of the sin within me. I’ve climbed the hill of Calvary. “The sin Jesus faced at Calvary” was to atone for my sin so I can stand before Him pure and without blame. I’ve been “readjusted” through the Cross.⁹

When “readjusted at the Cross” and beginning to live the life the Lord plans for us, Paul described to the Corinthians the kind of tools we’d have at our fingertips. The tools he described were comparable to what the Lord had shown me in this dream. The following is both a translation version of these verses as well as a paraphrased version that often helps to create pictures as to the meaning of the Scripture.

For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. (The world does not fight fair. We don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will.)

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds. (The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulating but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture.)

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up about the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the life shaped by Christ.)

And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once you obedience is complete. (Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.) _{[2 Co 10:3-6 NIV, (MSG)]}

I was to trust the Lord had filled my dream pocket with what I’d need in order to have the right tools and divine power to demolish the strongholds such as misconstrued philosophies, to take down any barriers that block the hearing and learning of truth as well as draw together my thoughts, feelings, and will in obedience to live my life for Christ.

Depth, Drive, and Direction Challenge: Like me, you may have turned to the Lord and cried out to Him for help. For me, it has been my imagination I’ve asked Him “to garrison far beyond where [I] can go.”¹⁰ I’ve found when I ask for help, I must trust and allow the Lord to hold, to occupy, and to command my life.

How does this statement of Oswald speak to your concept of God’s Word for your life? We will find within His Word “limitless horizons [that] brace the heart and mind to a new consciousness …[for] it is in His light we see light…He who is the Word of God unfolds to us the revelation of God until we can say…’I hold in my hands the Thought of God.’”¹¹

Peter shared about how we can have greater confidence in what the prophets of old said because, he and many others witnessed the fulfilling of their prophecies through Jesus Christ. He says: “You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Mourning Star shines in your hearts. Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scriptures ever came from the prophet’s own understanding or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.” _{[2 Peter 1:19-21 NLT]}

Oswald also spoke of the Written Word as the Living Word. How is God’s Word living in you? How is Christ’s light shining in your heart and revealing “limitless horizons” in new ways and giving you greater insight? What tools are you gaining? If not, the Word has just what you need.

¹Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1935:9
²Chambers, Oswald, [D.W. Lambert. ed.] Still Higher for His Highest. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. 1970:110
³Chambers, Oswald. Devotions for a Deeper Life. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 1986:178
⁴Chambers 1935:9
5Meier, Paul and Robert Wise. Windows of the Soul. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. 1995:241
6Chambers 1935:361
7Chambers 1970:80
8Ibid. 171
9Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. 1992:12.26
10Chambers 1935:9
11Chambers 1970:110

Israelites collecting Manna: after a lost fresco in the basamento of Bay 8 of the Vatican Loggia by Pietro Santi Bartoli is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Featured photo credit: Shreesha Bhat

**The perils of using a blog to share something that is more like a chapter book makes it hard for you as the reader to connect all the parts! Here is a short synopsis.
Dreams: These dreams came over a period of a year and were all connected. I had no rogue dreams during this time. In Intro 2, it describes how the Lord gave me a dream that played out initiating a relationship with a man I’ve called “Mani” in these blogs. The rest of the dreams came during the year after the halt in a three-year relationship.
DINGs: The sound from my phone that meant “Mani” had connected by text or through a game we had played together almost since the beginning of our relationship. While he was from my area, he had moved a couple hours away several years before the relationship. After the halt in it, he wanted to stay connected so we did throughout the year of the dreams. He connected many of the days and sometimes multiple times. Only the DINGs in which the Lord’s presence was sensed became GMDINGs. I was given a vision of this DING during the dream year that gave greater insight. [See Part 3.4a; Part 3.4b; Part 3.4c and Part 3.4d]
Oswald: A reference to Oswald Chambers and his devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. On the day of the first dream in the year of dreams, the Lord prompted me to begin reading his devotional beginning with that day which was March 31. Phenomenal connects to the dreams and to the issues I was addressing were present throughout the year. It kept me grounded through the Word and prayer as I went through this experience—a God-engineered Journey.

Midway in the dream year, a couple of Oswald’s devotions challenged me to “spill out” what the Lord had been giving me. Several events prompted by the Lord opened the way for me to begin doing so through this blog. Those ‘See Part so and so’ within the blogs are paths back to a blog that will give added understanding.

My prayer is that you will be blessed as you read for all glory goes to the Lord as I am just His vessel to pour it out.
Michele