I really, really want to have an encounter with Jesus! I would like to visit heaven, in a dream or a vision. I want to see angels. I have wanted this for a while, but this desire just keeps increasing over the course of my internship. I keep hearing from all of these people who have had encounters and I am provoked to jealousy (godly, I hope). I want one!
On Wednesday, Julie Meyer talked to us about dreams and shared some of the significant dreams that God has given her in recent years. She thinks that one of the things that make dreams so great is that God comes to you. I had never thought of it in those terms, but it's true! All I do is go to sleep. God does all the rest. Julie also challenged us to get the Bible into our minds and hearts. She challenged us by stating that we will dream about what captures our attention during the day. If I'm worrying about different situations in my life, I often find that I dream about them. Or, if I am spending lots of time reading a book or watching a TV series, I have also found that I will dream about them. So, I want to make God the thing in my head that takes up the most space. I want conversation with Him or thinking about Him as I read or remember or sing Scriptures to be what captures my attention during the day because I really, really want to encounter Him while I sleep.
Julie has had several heavenly dreams. She told us that she started having them after she committed to asking for them over the period of a few years. Julie mentioned that she meditated on Revelation 4:1:
After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things."
Julie did a word study on this verse and she said that the "come up here" is repetitive. God wants us to come up there again and again and again. Julie took this verse as a personal promise and started asking God to bring her up to heaven. She challenged us to believe this verse too and to own the idea that God wants to reveal Himself to us in dreams. He would love to bring us up to encounter Him in heaven. We just need to start asking.
This was also meaningful to me because I have been studying Revelation 4 and Ezekiel 1. I really want to have a mental picture of what God's throne room looks like so that I when I am praying I can imagine that I am right there. I am a real person praying to a real God who sits on a real throne in a real place! But, it's been challenging because some of this stuff makes no sense to me. I am a very visual person, but I keep reading these passages over and over again and I'm still having a hard time forming a mental picture of what these living creatures look like (Eze 1:5-25, Rev 4:6-9) and what God looks like (Eze 1, Rev 4). But, I want to know! So, I am going to keep studying and keep asking God to increase my revelation.
I got fired up even more when I noticed that Ezekiel was 30 when he had his first vision (Eze 1:1)! I had forgotten this, but Levites would begin their service as a priest when they turned 30. I am in my 30th year and I am a part of a priestly family, on earth and in heaven. I want to have heavenly visions! I want to receive the word of the Lord the way that Ezekiel did and I want to minister before God in the place of prayer and worship. So, I'm asking God to let me come up there. And, I actually think that this is available to all of us. So, if your heart is feeling stirred and you have a desire to go up there too; then start asking. I think that God would love to bring all of us up for a preview of coming attractions: heaven!
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