- We spend a third of our lives sleeping.
So the idea that God would just kind of ignore
that whole third of our lives,
and kinda leave it out,
I think we just haven't challenged that idea.
I know a lot of listeners today, you're like,
I don't even think about my dreams being used by God.
Why would that be important?
Well, the Bible's really clear.
In fact, in the book of Acts and Joel,
he says in the New Testament and the Old Testament
just to kind of get us both connected to it.
He says, in the last days, I'll pour my spirit
your sons or daughters will prophesy,
your young men will have visions
and your old men will dream dreams.
Why does the young men have a vision?
Because I think it happens more, like quickly.
But dreaming dreams take sometimes a lifetime.
So your old men have dreams
that kind of takes them a while.
So the way that I see it in my own life,
I'm not much of a dreamer.
I have a lot of pizza dreams.
But usually dreams that stick with me,
I just ask the Holy Spirit,
Holy Spirit, if this is a throwaway dream, throw it away,
I don't need it.
But if there's something in this dream that I need to know,
just reveal it to me.
My sister is a total prophetic dreamer.
In fact, before Jesus Culture Church in Sacramento region
ever was planted, she had a dream where
there was an airplane,
in the parking lot of our church Bethel.
And there was the stairs of the airplane was a rainbow,
and she saw unique individuals of our church,
climb up on those steps and get into the airplane.
Did you know that every person she wrote down,
she didn't tell anybody, she wrote it down,
every person she saw go up those stairs,
ended up going with the church plant.
So dreams are confirmation
that I think all prophetic should be confirmation.
We should never just take a dream and live a life
we should go okay God, all prophetic is confirmation
to the Word of God, the Word of God is our foundation.
It grounds us and the prophetic around us
whether it's dreams, visions, hearing something,
seeing something, feeling something,
are all avenues to confirming what the word is already said
about us and to us so, I love dreams.
I'm here to say, God, give me more dreams, I'm ready.
But most importantly, I wanna take dream seriously,
and part of taking that seriously is journaling it
writing it down.
I have friends that every morning they wake up,
they journal, a few thoughts of
what they had that night before.
So don't you guys think and maybe Laurie,
you could speak to this, but dreaming it with God,
prophetic, it's all about stewarding and taking seriously
what God is saying to us.
Sometimes you just need to say a bunch more
because we didn't even act in the last thing
He said to us last week, we're like, God, give me a word.
He's like, I gave you a dream, I gave you a prophet,
I gave you a spouse, I gave you a pastor,
everyone's saying this, and you're wanting to dream
to kind of get out of it.
I don't know about you, but I think sometimes
we don't take authority over our sleep,
we kind of let bad dreams kind of happen
and demonic things going on, and we're watching things
and then in our sleep.
I remember one time and I don't know if you guys
have ever had this but waking up and having
a demonic presence not on me, but around me
where I had fear, immediate fear.
And I remember talking to my dad about I said,
what do I do, and he said, if you could say
the name of Jesus, all things that are coming at you
have to bow down at the name of Jesus.
And I remember when I would wake up in fear, anxiety
or a bad dream, I would start to utilize Jesus,
Jesus and get that authority.
And I think some of the viewers that are watching today
you might be struggling with night terrors,
you might be struggling with, going to bed is scary for you,
it doesn't feel like a comfortable thing
you've got maybe memories, or trauma
that it's triggered when your vulnerabilities are down.
And what we wanna believe with you Better Together
is that we wanna believe that God is gonna come
and break all the things all the fear,
and all the anxiety that's wrapped around your sleep.
And we wanna believe that God's gonna give you a fresh,
deep restorative sleep like you've never had before.
And so one thing that we do when our kids are struggling is
we just loop worship music I know,
it's like really, but we just throw on it on
iPod or whatever, and just loop that worship music.
So when you're in that kind of sleep state,
you're getting that music around you and some of the things
we do is we just pray over our boys before they go to sleep.
I pray before going to bed. Lord,
I just ask that you bless my sleep, give me a deep sleep,
protect me, encourage me.
And I think it's really important that we take authority
over our sleep.
And then also I would say and this is just like
just to kind of make sure we say it.
You need to not take everything so serious.
I think sometimes we can be so weird
in the way that we get a dream of we're like,
I know that's my husband
or I know it's just to go over to this nation
or I knows that, and God's like no,
that was pizza calm down.
I think sometimes we as Christians,
we wanna kind of over if God wants to give it to you,
he'll confirm it.
So I sometimes I just wanna say let's all relax
a little bit.
Let's be fervent in our call, in our purpose.
But if God wants to say it, He has no problem confirming it
multiple ways.
And it's not like you're gonna miss this one moment.
So I think about Mary she said, when the Spirit of God
spoke to her it says she hid it in her heart.
That is, I think some of the call that's on our lives
is just take that thing, hide it in our heart,
like you said, Stephanie,
and let God continue that conversation.
- Hi, everybody, I hope you enjoyed this video.
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