Seeing the Voice of God: What God Is Telling You through Dreams and Visions (10 page)

But 3 days into the 6–8 weeks, I cried out to Jesus. Easing myself down to the ground in my closet to avoid more pain, I had a very frank conversation with God
and
with my enemy. I have done it thousands of times in this same closet over the last 23 years—but this time, something was different. This time, I
had an audience in that closet with me . . . you. I asked God to back me up so that I could testify to you about His healing power, and I forbade the devil from interfering.

After a few minutes of just waiting on the Lord, I felt peace and decided to get up, carefully pulling myself to a standing position and leaving the closet. As I bent over to get something, I noticed,
Hey, did I just bend over
to pick something up?
Without any fireworks or apparent signs of the Holy Spirit’s activity, my body was merely doing things it could not have done just moments before.

I walked up to a full mirror, bent down and touched my toes, then stood back up, twisted my rib cage from side to side and jumped up and down three times. No pain. An hour before, it had taken me fifteen minutes to get in and out of bed, during which there were many shrieks and yelps. Now I could still feel a pulled muscle or something at the point of impact, but suddenly my ribs were not screaming at me for looking at them the wrong way, and breathing deeply did not hurt anymore.
Wait, did I
just breathe deeply?

On day five, I went for another X-ray. It showed that my lung was entirely reinflated, and you could not even see where the rib break had been. In the words of the doctor, “Your pneumothorax is healed.” The before-and-after X-rays flooded Facebook.

My nutritionist told me soon after that my adrenal issues must be improving ahead of schedule, too, because of how well my body handled the trauma and bounced back. A body on the brink of adrenal failure cannot handle even a little trauma, but mine did, emerging from it like Superman out of his phone booth. Honestly, as I write this I can say that I have not felt this good in years. Even those pesky extra ten pounds are gone now that I have paid my sleep debt.

These chapters have cost me something, but an amazing calm has come after their completion. I even had a powerful dream near the end of the writing in which I saw my son Jhason racing toward me in utter joy. His name means “healing,” and that is exactly what happened to me through this fast healing. The
enemy lost. What he intended for evil, God used for good. I became more focused, more determined and even more productive, researching and writing so much for you that the one medical chapter I started with had to be turned into two chapters that I hope will change your life, body and spirit.

The night belongs to God

The sleep belongs to me

The dream that’s gained is preordained

To heal and set me free.

© Laura Harris Smith, February 8, 2013

PRAYER

Let’s pray out loud together:

Father, You are the Great Physician. I ask You to heal my body so it can sleep, then heal my mind so it can dream. Finally, I ask You to heal my spirit so it might receive from You, starting tonight. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

IMPARTATION

Right now, I release and impart to you the seer anointing, the ability to dream, the ability to remember, the ability to interpret and the ability to see God’s voice as you rest and value this sacred thing called sleep. (Now open your hands, shut your eyes and receive it.)

I
will never forget where I was standing the day I admitted to someone that I was seeing visions. I had told no one but Chris. Whom would I tell in my conservative church? Having had no teaching about visions, I thought surely it was all in my head, and although I had read about visions in many Bible stories, they were . . . well, just Bible stories. Did that kind of thing even still happen today?

As I was playing putt-putt golf that day with my good friend Beth, she began describing a new book she was reading called
This Present Darkness
. The author, Frank Peretti, wove a tale about the heavenly realms and its key players, angels and demons. As my friend described this one hideous demon from the book, I stopped in midswing. “Beth, I’ve seen that. It. Him. I saw one of those.”

Out it all spilled as I explained about this demon I had seen in my mirror as I stood doing my makeup one day. It had stepped out from behind me and stared me down in the mirror. I felt
no fear or shock, nor the need to spin around and see if it was really there. It just was.

But it did not bring with it instincts of fleeing, as I might have experienced if a burglar had snuck up behind me. It was as though someone had lifted a veil and opened my eyes into the spirit realm. Standing there, I, too, was in the spirit and was therefore totally unafraid. No emotions at all, in fact. Next thing I knew, I was “back,” and it was just me in the mirror.

Beth did not even bat an eyelash. She wanted to know more. Thank God for Beth. Thank God for Frank Peretti. That game of miniature golf majorly impacted the rest of my life and ministry.

I have since heard people say, “That thing in the mirror would totally freak me out!” I would have said that, too, before I experienced it. But it was not as if he had invaded my world. It was as if I had invaded his. My main question was,
Why is that thing in my house at all?
It drew me to my knees in prayer to ask God if any open door in my life had let him in. If you had seen him, you would have asked the same question and dug deeply for the answer. But I could not think of anything that would have opened a door.

What I did not understand at the time is that we are not the main show down here, but that we—in an earthly shell—are merely passing through to a spiritual world that is very real and very eternal. A world to which our eyes are closed unless God decides to lift that veil and open them for some purpose. A world to which we will all transition one day. As the saying goes, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” Once the body dies, our spirit lives on. We will all live forever; it is just a matter of where.

But before we travel too far down the freeway of seeing angels and demons, I want to discuss first what visions are and how they occur. If you have never had a vision, I do not want to scare you by implying that your first vision will involve seeing a demon. I am just “lucky,” I guess.

Cut!

One of my favorite pastimes is video editing. You will not find it anywhere on my résumé, but for the last fifteen years I have edited everything from television shows to commercials to short themed musical videos for special events. None of it was done for a living, but merely because one project after another fell into my lap, so I reinvented myself to accomplish each one for some worthy cause or ministry. Along the way, I mastered various editing softwares, and probably as an extension of my writing abilities, I also learned that I had a natural feel for emotive timing and viewer satisfaction. Video editing is the perfect occupation if you want to maneuver people’s emotions without getting in trouble for it.

But I am glad that I ventured into that visual world, and not just because I have a couple of sons who were onlookers to Mom’s small beginnings with her meager tools. They went on to establish the capability for having a career in film themselves, and in the eldest’s case, he is realizing that goal while combining it with the inheritance of his father’s musical sensibilities.

I am also glad because it has forced me to begin to think of God as a master editor and of my seer experiences as a timeline to which He is constantly contributing and cutting. In fact, it is the best analogy I can think of to begin describing to you what happens when I see a vision.

Next time you watch your favorite movie or television show, make note of the transitions between shots and scenes. Dissolve, cross-fade, overlap, iris, page-peel, cube, slide, dip-to-color and wipe are just a few of the transitions that can move you from one scene or frame to another. Their job is to subtly reinforce the emotion of that moment in your story without drawing attention to themselves. I always find that long, slow transitions elicit more heartfelt emotions and that not using a transition keeps the momentum at a steady pace. And of course, nothing says “the end” like a fade to black. But the rule is to keep it simple. Never use a transition when a cut will do.

A vision—for me—is like having a new frame dropped into my timeline with no transition between the real-life action that preceded or followed it. The clouds do not part, the angels do not sing and the trumpets do not blow. There is no zooming in or fading out, and no blips in the audio, for that matter.

Disney used to have a comedy television show about a teenage psychic who was always coming in and out of what she called visions. Whenever one commenced, she would jerk her head sharply toward the camera and get a wide-eyed look as shafts of light shot out of a close-up of one of her pupils. Reverse that upon exiting the vision, topped off with an “I’ve just been struck by lightning” look left on her face. All I can say is I am so glad God does not do that to me, because if He did, I might just have to resign. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. A vision definitely interrupts what I am doing, but it is never intrusive, nor does it cause me to act dementedly or become emotionally unhinged. That would only be bad publicity for God. If you were sitting with me, you would not even know what had happened.

From my perspective, if I were in conversation with you, there would be your face . . . then another very brief scene during which I would not be aware that you were there . . . and then your face again. No transitions, no fireworks. And if you are wondering what happens when the vision goes on so long that I am not cognizant enough to keep the conversation going (thus freaking the other person out as I stare into space), my answer is that God has never—not once—done that to me. As I said, He is a gentleman.

Like dropping a new, unexpected photo into my slideshow video timeline, visions for me are clean, transitionless cuts. And even when I have seen horrendous things in them, visions are peaceful. Calm warnings come, and I am either to use them in prayer for the intended party or to release what I have seen to him or her. Of course, once my mind begins processing what I have seen, I may sometimes have to wrestle my way back to peace, especially if a vision involves a loved one who is in urgent peril.

Visions definitely happen independently, with no help from me. Visions do not involve the imagination, and you do not get a running start and daydream your way into one. I definitely have no control over when they come or how long they are. And even though my eyes are open in the example I just gave, I do not consider that an open vision. (I will explain more about open visions shortly.)

I have heard of other people who have very long visions, some of which I would consider translations. (We will discuss biblical translations later, too, where a person was transported to another place for a specific reason.) But whereas my dreams are often quite long, my visions are not. Usually, even though they include motion and speech, I call them snapshots or frames, and they are no more than four to five seconds long. Everyone’s visions are different, including yours now and to come, but now you know what mine feel like.

Hopefully, what I have said here cuts through the obscurity of how a vision might feel to a seer. Now let’s explore where a vision comes from and what the Bible says about visions—important, because otherwise, your visions can become more about the visions themselves than about the Giver of them, quickly stagnating them and stopping their pure flow of accuracy.

Visions in Scripture

Take a look at this partial list of visions in Scripture. There is no substitute for savoring them one by one, so get up and go get your Bible. I will wait for you. . . .

Genesis 15:1—God consoles Abram with a promise

Genesis 46:2—Jacob is told in a “vision in the night” to move to Egypt

Numbers 24:1–25—Balaam sees a vision for Israel

1 Samuel 3—Samuel hears God’s audible voice, but it is called a “vision” (verse 15)

2 Samuel 7—Nathan establishes David’s royal throne and commissions the Temple

Isaiah 1—Isaiah describes a vision of Jerusalem and Judah

Isaiah 21:2—Isaiah receives a dreadful vision of judgment

Isaiah 29:11—Isaiah delivers a vision to a sinful people

Ezekiel 1:1—Ezekiel sees a vision of the four living creatures

Ezekiel 7—Ezekiel tells Israel of his vision for them

Ezekiel 8—Ezekiel is taken to Jerusalem in a “vision”

Ezekiel 13:7—Ezekiel warns of vain visions and divination

Ezekiel 40—Ezekiel’s visions of Israel

Ezekiel 43—Ezekiel has another vision of the glory of the Lord

Daniel 2:19–45—Daniel gets the king’s dream revealed to him in a night vision

Daniel 8—Daniel sees the archangel Gabriel and a vision about the end times

Daniel 9:21—Daniel gets a vision and a message from the archangel Gabriel

Daniel 10—Daniel is visited by the archangel Michael after a 21-day fast

Obadiah 1—Obadiah receives a vision for his people

Nahum 1—Nahum’s vision and message to his people

Zechariah 1:8—Zechariah’s vision of the red horse

Matthew 17:9—the Mount of Transfiguration is called a vision (in many translations)

Luke 1:22—Zechariah realizes his vision in the temple

Acts 9:10–11—Ananias has a vision to go pray for Paul’s healing

Acts 9:12—through a vision Paul has already seen that Ananias is coming

Acts 10—Cornelius has a vision telling him to send for Peter, and Peter has a vision in a
trance
that prepares him for his visit (the lowered sheet vision)

Acts 16:9–10—Paul has a vision about a man from Macedonia beckoning him

Acts 18:9—Paul’s vision and direction from the Lord

Revelation 9—John’s vision of the horses and riders

Throughout history, the Holy Spirit has guided God’s people through dreams, visions and prophecy. But according to Acts 2—where Peter quoted the prophet Joel—we are on the verge of a major intensification of this type of activity. In fact, it has already begun. That is why we must be educated and refuse counterfeits.

But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,

That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

Your young men shall see visions,

Your old men shall dream dreams.

And on My menservants and on My maidservants

I will pour out My Spirit in those days;

And they shall prophesy.”

Acts 2:16–18

As I said in chapter 2, no one in the Bible ever asked God to give them a dream. They were just busy seeking Him, and
the dreams came. But if God says He is going to increase this form of communication with us as Jesus’ Second Coming nears, then there is nothing wrong with positioning yourself to be a recipient.

As you read through each of these visions, first be mindful of the humanity of each seer. Imagine what it took to deliver these visual sermons, including the risking of one’s own reputation. It is no different today, whether the seer is being called on by the president of the United States, submitting a message to his or her pastor or lovingly confronting a friend about a hidden area of his or her life that God has revealed to the seer. First lesson for every seer: Learn tact.

The words
vision
and
visions
are mentioned more than 120 times in the Bible, and rarely are they used in a figurative sense. And not all of these visions fall into one category. In fact, for our one little English word
vision
, there are nine possible Hebrew words and six possible Greek or Aramaic words that compare to it. While I would love to tell you that you could merely look up which Hebrew word is used with a certain prophet’s vision and it would tell you whether it was an open vision, night vision or waking vision, that is not the case. I am about to show you more than a dozen definitions and derivatives that ambiguously mirror one another.
1

In fact, it is so hard to find a variation in one over the other that I daresay they are more like synonyms. Sort of like in an English thesaurus, the word
vision
in the Bible might include
mirage
,
illusion
,
ecstasy
or
apparition
. These words are in many ways equal, and we must rely solely upon the seer’s description to distinguish categories. Trouble is, the seers were so riveted by what they were seeing that the last thing on their minds was giving us a written side lesson in visionary protocol. You will notice in the following breakdown that some stories are mentioned twice (such as Daniel 8 and 10). This is because Daniel uses the different synonyms for
vision
interchangeably while telling his story.

In some instances, the word
vision
was actually just being used to describe a mode of revelation, such as in 1 Samuel 3 when little Samuel hears God’s audible voice, yet refers to it as a vision. If you will note the following definition of
mar’ah
, you will discover that “seeing” and “hearing” are sometimes interchangeable and are often irrelevant details when communicating with God. I suppose this thought also lends believability—and perhaps legitimacy—to the very title of this book,
Seeing the Voice of God
.