Shame & Disgrace

Sunday, August 10, 2008, 7:56 a.m. – I woke with this old hymn in my head:

Christ Returneth / H. L. Turner / James McGranahan

It may be at morn, when the day is awaking,
When sunlight through darkness and shadow is breaking
That Jesus will come in the fullness of glory
To receive from the world "His own."

O Lord Jesus, how long, how long
Ere we shout the glad song,
Christ returneth! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Amen. Hallelujah! Amen.

I also woke from A DREAM: A friend’s elderly father was kicked out of his apartment because he was old and another elderly man was also homeless so I asked my husband if the two men could stay in our guest room. We had (not in real life) a full-size bed and a twin-size bed in this room.

When I went to check on the two men I found that the man who was sleeping in the full-size bed had moved his bedding on to the floor next to the bed of the other man plus he was partially uncovered in his private area and he slept naked.

I suggested to my husband that we remove the frame of the full-size bed from the room and place it in a storage room so that we could move the man and his bedding back to his side of the room. Then I would place a desk in the room in between the two beds for one man to use and I would place another desk somewhere else in the house for the other man to use. END

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Isaiah 30:1-5:

Woe to the Obstinate Nation
1 "Woe to the obstinate children,"
declares the LORD,
"to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;
2 who go down to Egypt
without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh's protection,
to Egypt's shade for refuge.

3 But Pharaoh's protection will be to your shame,
Egypt's shade will bring you disgrace.

4 Though they have officials in Zoan
and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,

5 everyone will be put to shame
because of a people useless to them,
who bring neither help nor advantage,
but only shame and disgrace."

AND ANOTHER DREAM: My daughter and I and another woman went shopping for a meal. My daughter had very little food in her shopping bag. I bought hamburger buns, meat, carrots, celery, etc. for this meal. I believe I was planning to make Sloppy Joe’s. I was in the store picking out something for the meal and had left the shopping cart in the care of my daughter. I all of a sudden noticed that she had abandoned the cart with all 3 women’s purses in it, so I retrieved the cart with the purses.

There was a scene in here where we were cooking the hamburgers out on an open grill (flat grill) when a young child began to get the grill ready for their family’s food while ours was still on the grill cooking. She was pushing our food out of the way to make room for hers. I told the child to wait until we were finished, but the child would not listen. So, I told the child’s mother to have the child wait. END

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Isaiah 30:6-18:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2030;&version=31;

AND ANOTHER DREAM: A bunch of my relatives (aunts, uncles and cousins) that I have not heard from in a long time all called me on the same day. So, I planned a meal for them at the home of a poor woman (reminded me of my deceased aunt’s house). It seemed like we had previously planned a meal for these relatives and had sent them invitations to the meal, only they never showed up. So I told the woman this time that if they didn’t show again that she and her family could have all the food. END

Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Isaiah 30:19-33: (See link above)

My Understanding: I’m still working through these dreams. Based on the scriptures and who my daughter and I usually represent in my dreams (with exceptions) I would say that I’m representing the Lord and my daughter is the church and that the Lord is buying food for the children of God – could be spiritual food or the food of adversity. The Lord leaves the riches of the gospel in the hands of his church for their care but they abandoned the truth of the gospel and they abandoned the gifts that God gave them to do his work and so he is taking them back in judgment.

In the dream where the child moves my food out of the way in order to prepare her own for her family I believe this is about the verses where the rebellious children are unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction so they push the truth out of the way in order to serve their own messages.

My husband and I were visiting a church. We went to a small group meeting that had a study that was based upon a man’s book. The woman leading it said, "God is pleased with us no matter what we do." She was saying this in context of another statement she made about how God’s love never is any greater or any less for anyone. I came home and did a study on “please.” There are many scriptures that state that we need to learn what pleases God and we need to do what pleases him and there were several that stated what did NOT please God (all NT verses), so obviously our actions do determine God’s pleasure or non-pleasure with us, contrary to the message I believed they were trying to get across that says that God is pleased with us no matter what we do. That, I believe, gives people a license to sin.

The first dream has to do with relying on other people, nations, etc. for our protection rather than relying on God and how that will be to our shame. I don’t understand the whole dream yet. I have a sense, though, that this is Georgia relying on the USA and NATO and the EU to defend them against Russia and their trust in us has been to their shame. We have not defended them. It also, I believe, has to do with relying on the teachings and/or the protection of man and how that will be to our shame.

The last dream is about the apostate church and/or the Jewish people who were invited to the wedding banquet but they didn’t show up and how God is going to give them another chance to respond to the gospel invitation but if they refuse again then the Lord will give the riches of his grace to those who will accept his invitation. My relatives calling on me all on one day is symbolic, I believe, of God’s people calling on him in a day of tragedy.

I get the sense that the “sloppy Joe’s” in this instance has to do with the Lord shaking the nations in the sieve of destruction – they will be chopped meat with blood (sauce) mixed in.

Well, that is what I have so far.