Mat Chamberlain shared this story with me, of a recent conversation he had with one of his Young Life kids.
Reminds me that God's Spirit is speaking to many of our pre-Christian friends through drams and pictures, and is looking to us to help them interpret their dreams and lead them to Jesus.
Here's Mat's story.
"Have you every had a dream that you know was from God? This summer a student pulled me aside one night and told me that he was going through a hard time. Over the summer he started following the wrong crowed and tried cocaine for the first time. And he was really concerned with the path his life was taking. In the midst of this time he had a dream and it went something like this.
He found himself walking aimlessly in a terrible storm, a storm like he had never seen, with torrential rain flooding the ground, hail pounding everything in its path, lightning crashing all around him and wind like he had never felt. There didn't seem like there was any hope around him but he was holding an umbrella and underneath that umbrella was a perfect sunny day, no rain, no hail, no lightning, no wind. He was completely protected under this umbrella. When he told me this I was standing in awe. Over the past couple years I had been meeting with a couple godly men in our church who wanted to have a disciple relationship. We were going through a book called “Partners” and I vividly remembered a diagram that was illustrated in that book explaining our separation from God. It shows God as a cloud, creator, holy, just and loving. We are meant to be under that cloud in perfect relationship with him. But we decide to reject God and go our own way. And the cloud gets stormy, rain and wind are in the forecast for us. Then out of Love God sends his Son to be the umbrella sheltering us from the storm! In belief and relationship with Jesus he takes our sin and allows us to have a reconciled relationship with the Father again.
This illustration was just stick men, clouds and an umbrella but this teens dream made it come alive in my mind. This was my chance to tell this teen about what his dream meant. We had lunch and I brought my partners book to show him the illustration so he could understand his dream. A few of us from camp are now getting together once a week for a meal and we are reading the look of John together. Pray that this teen understands the fullness of his dream and makes a decision to make it a reality."