I recently had two dreams leading up to the new year that I want to share with you. This isn’t a word for 2022 as much as it’s a revealing His desire for us to be unshackled from the season behind us and prepared for what we are crossing over into.
DREAM OF THE OPEN DOORWAY
I have had many dreams of doors in my life but this dream was profoundly to the point and spoke volumes to me. In the dream I see an open doorway and I am about to step through it when feel a deep pain or a grief hit my heart and so I stop in my tracks. “What is going on?” I ask myself. Then I hear the words “It’s unfinished business”. But what is unfinished? Then I begin to think of how many personal promises from the last few years has felt UNFINISHED.. so many. The grief hits my heart again. I know I can’t move on until this is dealt with.
Then I look down at my feet and I see mud and dirt on them that I didn’t see before. “Wow, that’s a lot of dirt!” I think to myself very confused that I didn’t see it before. (The new will reveal the old) Then right then and there I knew I needed to remove the mud and dirt. As I did it was as if I was able to see the witchcraft that had come at me during the last season. The times I was slimed by people and my name dragged through the mud. The time people flung dirt at me and tried to find dirt on me. In reality it was never people but the spirit of assassination. Then I hear the words of Jesus saying what He said to His disciples;
“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet” Matthew 10:14
I had been walking with this mud, dirt, and dust for too long and I needed to finally shake it once and for all and move on. So I did. Then I heard a loud instruction. “Forgive them”. So I did then the dream ended.
DON’T LET DISTRACTION FOLLOW YOU
As I was processing this dream with the Lord and talking through it I saw a image flash before me of a magician doing a slight-of-hand trick. “What was that?” I asked. Then I heard “Distraction has been the game but don’t let it follow you”.
It made sense. 2021 was a year of so much smoke and mirrors and the enemy constantly trying to lure us into fights and situations and false emergencies and fears that were all show. Why? So that we would get exhausted by chasing something that didn’t exist or need our participation, and take our eyes off what we were really called to.
Distraction was sent to get us focused on who was speaking against us. Who didn’t like us. What wasn’t working. What could happen, and what didn’t happen. All the while, we were being tricked into a slight of hand game. Look back and you’ll see this was true. We can’t let distraction follow us.
I pray for next level discernment and wisdom over you right now in Jesus name!
AT THE PIONEERS CROSSING
In the second dream I stood at a railway crossing with the red lights flashing and waiting for the train to pass. As I stood I could see that on the other side of the tracks my path multiplied into many paths and so I began trying to look and see where each path led.
It seemed that the path to the far left was pretty straight and I could see something in the distance in that direction. Then the path in the middle was pretty much the same - a few more bends but ultimately seemed pretty well trodden and going somewhere. Then I felt it, the knowing, the pull, or whatever you’d like like to call that moment where God changes plans and you have to deal with any previous expectations and adjust your sights on a new horizon. I knew that on the other side I was called to take the unfamiliar path… yet again.
EXHAUSTION FROM THE LAST MARATHON
To be honest my heart sank. I’ve been on that road far too many times. I know the loneliness of it and the constant misunderstanding. I know there are far more bears to fight there and arrows to deflect. “Can I handle this again?” I thought. Then I look to my right and left and I see others like me waiting. “They are probably going to get the easy road. That would be typical. Then I began to analyze the situation further and ask the Lord; “Is it wrong to long for some reprieve? Is it wrong to desire the road of least resistance for a while? How come others get to enjoy the comfortable road? How come it’s not expected of them?” What was I looking at this new season through? Exhaustion from the last marathon I had just been through. The memories of hardship and the rabbit trails of the last few years.
My heart was starting to feel anger and bitterness bubble up inside like a kettle beginning to boil. “Peace!” I hear a voice say and I instantly come to my senses. It’s the train-master about to let us cross and show us where we are meant to go.
THE CONFRONTING ULTIMATUM
Out of nowhere the train screams on past us and shocks me how fast it was going. The wind from the trains motion pushes us all back and whirls around us as it seems to go on and on and on. The train-master preparing to let us cross shortly simply announces “Leave everything behind!” “Everything?” I ask in reply. “Yes, you can’t afford to be distracted on the other side or you’ll end up lost. So leave it behind”. My heart starts processing at a hundred miles an hour again but this time I’m self-reflecting. “What am I carrying that I need to leave behind?” I ask myself.
Then I begin to hear the judgments and labels I had been carrying from other people. I see the faces of those who have hurt me, the dark and painful moments I didn’t understand, and the hope deferred wrapped around me like a counterfeit mantle. I had seconds left until the train passed and I knew I needed to make peace with behind me, but it felt like a mountain, a roadblock, and a big bag of weight I didn’t know how to get through in time.
THE FACE OF JESUS THROUGH THE ANGUISH
Then I see it. I see Him. Through the tinted glass of the train I see on the other-side a man staring INTO me as if He knew the wrestle I was in. I stared back awkwardly and kept looking away, looked back, then away, then eventually locked eyes with Him. I knew who He was and He wanted me to know it was ok. He wanted me to know I could forgive them, the accusers, the season, and say goodbye to the path behind me. So in those split seconds I did exactly that.
Whewww what a weight off my shoulders! The train and now passed and we all crossed over and I stopped at the beginning of this new and unknown path but somehow I didn’t feel what I felt before. I didn’t feel like I had been dealt a bad hand. It felt fresh. I felt fresh. I was now ready to move on and embrace the new whatever that looked like. I didn’t need to look behind anymore. I didn’t need to prove myself or anyone wrong and i didn’t need to justify my steps. Something was different.
THIS SEASON YOU’LL SEE THE FRUIT OF YOUR LAST PIONEERING SEASON
Then to my surprise I heard a loud noise of people laughing and talking loudly behind me and I turned to see hundreds of others all joining me in the same path! “Who are you?” I asked. “We have been following you for years and we finally caught up!” They said.
This is for the pioneers who right now are at the end of the year about to cross over and are feeling the pull of a new unknown or detour. You have been wrestling a holy discontent and pull to move into a different lane than most yet again in 2022. Maybe you are trying to reconcile your last season and last unknown trek and the flood of emotions and memories of the trials are screaming at you. Maybe you are just trying to move out of exhaustion and the thought of running alone is too painful for you to bear.
Know this;
22, CLOSURE, & BRAND NEW DOORS THAT CAN’T BE SHUT!
When I think of doors I always think of Isaiah 22:22 which says;
“I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open”
What is this authority being spoken about? The authority to shut doors and open them.
The Hebrew word for “open” in this passage means to “break forth, open wide, and let go free” which speaks to me of the moment of unleashing after being caged up and delayed for so long.
The Hebrew word for “shut” in this passage means to close up, deliver up, give over, repair, and surrender which speaks to me of the type of closure God is speaking of where through surrender and letting go He delivers us, severs ties, and heals us.
I feel like God wants us to shut doors once and for all. This isn’t some Christian cliche with clever imagery. This is the word of God, your instruction manual right here. It’s time you stopped camping out at the door of breakthrough where you see it but don’t hold it, and it’s time that you took your keys of authority and closed that door behind you and opened the new.
LET’S DO BUSINESS WITH GOD
As I was writing this out I felt strongly that I needed to end this with two invitations to do business with God as we cross over.
Firstly I want to invite you to surrender your pain and wounds at the foot of the cross just like both dreams spoke of. How do you do this? That’s entirely up to you but if you felt the nudge of the spirit or felt any pain, anger, and hurts come to the surface as you read this I want to encourage you to give it to Jesus. Forgive those who hurt you. Surrender your doubts and fears and questions. Give him your hope deferred and ask him to deliver you and heal your heart that has felt sick. Lock eyes with Jesus and get your closure.
Secondly I felt strongly to invite those who have felt far away from the Lord. Just out of sync, out of peace, and feeling lost. Maybe you haven’t spoken in a while and don’t know where to begin. There are those who have fallen back into addictions and things you feel ashamed of but don’t let that rob you as you step into a New Year. Close that door and open the door to life with Jesus again. How do you do this? Just surrender to Him and lay your life down before Him and ask Him to touch your afresh. Someone reading this feels at the very bottom of rock bottom and you don’t see a way out but I want to tell you that your rescue is coming. Jesus sees you and can take away that demonic torment you have been experiencing. The spirit of suicide and death is leaving someone too. Lord sever all demonic ties and roots in everyone reading this in Jesus name! Shut the door!
Let the new path begin..