PARABLE SUNDAY

Climbing Above the Water

(Dream parable of rising above the flood)

Growing in our knowledge of God and the gifts of the Spirit is a process.  The world has a way of trying to throw things at us to keep us from walking in faith.  When we trust God and His word to push through trials we will stay above the water that tries to drown out our rightful position in the Lord. 

I had a dream about being on vacation on a desert island.  The newscast tells us that a terrible event is coming.  A rare weather phenomenon will take place and they are not sure of the results but it involves massive flooding.

We don’t believe the report that it could be catastrophic but when the Flooding begins we immediately see the impact of this storm.  The water table begins to rise and people are looking to where they can get to safety. My mother is with me and we are staying in a hotel.  There are about 20 floors.  We get a room on the top floor. 

The first wave of flooding consumes many people. The water is rising so slowly towards the hotel the threat never seems more than we can manage as long as there is another place for us to get to that is higher. 

My Pastor Mark Haney is now with me and I look for another place that is higher.  There are a couple of buildings in the distance that are higher so we head in that direction.  I realize my mother is my responsibility and I am worried for her safety. 

As Pastor and I move toward the larger building for safety I realize something great.  There is a mountain in the distance.  The mountain is semi tall and is a lot higher elevation than the buildings.  It was a perspective that I had not thought of.  It was time to climb the mountain for our safety.

During this transition I lost my mother along the way.  I was trying hard to find her but she knew that we all were heading to the mountain.  I was sad but knew for some reason that she was safe.  Most people were slowly perishing in the water and unable or unwilling to climb to higher ground.

As we climb up the mountain it is every man for himself.  People are looking for resources to survive.  Food and shelter are the primary concerns.  We come to a small group of people on the side of the mountain and as we walk past a man is holding them at gunpoint.  He is telling them what they will do to help him survive.  As we walk on past he begins to holler at me.  He is trying to give me an order.  I continue past as if I do not hear him.  The other people are telling me he is hollering at me and threatening me to do what he wants.  I continue past him on the destination of climbing the mountain.

As we get near the top and the water continues to rise I realize something great.  The mountain is not the tallest mountain.  There are others.  Not only in this region but also around the world.  Pastor Mark and I have figured out the process and are becoming more confident in our ability to survive, which in this analogy is to reach our goal.  We look toward the next mountain, but also towards the biggest mountains beyond those so we can reach a place of destiny and survival.  There seems to be time to make the next level, the only thing we will need are the basic resources to survive.  Food etc.

We are now seeking out bigger mountains.  As we journey in that direction the water continues to rise.  We run across some old friends that try to get us off course and playing around along the way.  We are not off track for long and continue to move forward. 

Nearing another mountain I realize something.  We could also find a boat.  Not just a small boat, but also a huge ship, one that would float on the water.  It would also have resources for our survival.  Now the confidence I have in our survival has grown from certain disaster that I was seeing to certain confidence in our success.

Then I realized I was in a car and now my wife was with me.  We are heading towards the next destination, which is finding a ship.  A cruise ship would work great.  As Carrie and I are traveling together the storm is really building ahead and there is a sense of it catching us.  We are headed into it and it was clear that the water was rising closer and it would be a tough journey, but I had great confidence in us making it to the ship. 

The skies cleared again and it was apparent that we would find our way to the ship, and then I realized something.  We could find an Airplane if we needed one!

Conclusion:

In this dream water spiritually represents the rising of conflict and deception of the enemy.  God always has a plan to keep the enemy under our feet.  Jesus made this possible, but we must seek the higher ground of God to stay above the trap of the world.  “The revelation of only needing a ship to stay above the danger was very reassuring.  It seems so simple at times, but in this case we were thinking in the wrong perspective.  Life is often that way.  We most often see things the way others do, like sheep needing a shepherd.  We usually accept the most readily available solution, like climbing to the top of the hotel.  We don’t look for the solutions that the journey will provide down the road. We simply need to walk to the next destination and wait for God to reveal the next part of the plan.  Each step of the way this dream was providing the next step.  There was an order that needed to be followed.

The journey provided a lesson that was part of the process we needed to learn. Each step helped us build character for the next step.  If we had jumped straight into the boat and complete security in our survival we would have missed the lessons along the way. 

I believe that Carrie was with me as a part of me the whole way until the part where we were 2 different people.  Only then was there a growing uncertainty that we could stay above water and survive the storm.  This revealed to me the importance of her and I staying “one” spiritually during the process.  When our relationship was focused on the same destination and plan we were very confident and unwavering.  The world wanted to throw things at us to cause us to not see with the same vision.

This dream brought to me a great revelation.  Follow God and trust Him on our journey.  He has every step planned for our, but also knows we need to grow spiritually and in FAITH, learn along the way.  God has a great destiny for us all and will patiently make it clear where we need to go next, one step at a time!

Proverbs 3:5-6New International Version (NIV)