a scary dream - a powerful christ

So the other night I had an interesting dream. It was the kind of dream that feels completely real. I guess that’s why it was so terrifying.
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I was falling into an endless pit of darkness. Falling… falling… falling… with no end in sight. There was just enough light that I could see smoke passing by my face as I was in this complete free fall.
While I was falling I had this recollection to someone’s description of Hell I had heard once before when I was a young teenager: That the scariest part of Hell is not the heat, but that you can’t touch anything concrete. That all you can do is reach into open space without being able to interact with anything but your own miserable body.
You know how in certain dreams you have this strong feeling that something just happened in the dream before your conscious experience of the dream? Like there was something that occurred in the timeframe and context of the dream world in which you now reside, but this happened before you were consciously “invested” into the dream? It’s like when your experience of the dream begins, you have been filled in omnisciently of what happened before you got there.
So this was the feeling I had when I became consciously aware of the dream. The “thing” that happened before I got plugged into this dream was that I had just died in my sleep. I was falling into this pit because I was transitioning into the spiritual realm. The entire time in the dream I was anxiously waiting to see where I ended up: Heaven or Hell.
I felt this overwhelming blend of doubt and fear as I wrestled with the idea that I might have deceived myself in my earthly experience. That perhaps my perception of Christianity had been skewed by my own personal motives. That perhaps I had never genuinely surrendered my life to Christ. Perhaps I had never made Christ my Lord.
I’m falling… falling… falling. Cold wind in my face, my spirit aching within.
Then, I finally woke up. I was in an extremely cold sweat. It was 2:00 AM on the dot. I was fearful since I had also heard before that 2:00 AM was the “Devil’s hour.” I kept thinking, “What is God trying to show me tonight?” And on the other side of my brain I was thinking, “Is the Devil trying to scare me into doubting my salvation?”
If anyone tells you they never have doubts about their faith, or that they always feel completely rooted, or that they never feel scared about entering into eternity; I have my doubts about their honesty.
Of course, we go through seasons of spiritual highs and definitely seasons of spiritual lows. But I think at some point everyone has had that moment where they doubt everything they believe in, in a moment of weakness and fear. A moment where they give into the fear, they doubt the miracles of God, and they sink into the ocean that Peter once sank into as he took his focus off of Christ Jesus our glorious Lord.
In my dream I had taken my eyes off Christ Jesus, and the Devil was playing with my fears to an extreme degree.
So… what did I do? I turned to the Holy Scriptures for comfort. I wanted to see if the page I flipped to would speak to me. (Sometimes I randomly open my Bible just to see if the verse I land on has something to do with whatever situation I’m dealing with.)
So I opened my Bible to where I left off previously. My good friend, Reed Chambers, recently advised me to read through Psalms to help me feel closer to Christ. It had worked tremendously as the Word of Christ marinated in my heart. But, I had stopped reading at Psalms 103 and picked up reading in the Book of Joshua at some point in my study of Psalms.
On this odd night, following my dream, I turned back to Psalm 103:1-5 where my book mark was still wedged into my Bible:
Bless the Lord, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget none of His benefits; Who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases; Who redeems your life from the pit, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; Who satisfies your years with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle. (NASB)
It was one of the most powerful nights of my entire life. What a direct message from Jesus Christ!
The saying is tried and true: If you want God to speak to you, read the Bible; if you want God to speak to you out loud, read the Bible out loud.
God hit my heart with an arrow of compassion and peace that night directly from His Word. God “redeems your life from the pit”. The pit that I was falling into in that terrible dream. I deserve to fall into the pit, into eternal destruction, but Christ has redeemed me, and has predestined good things for my life (in the sense that they will give Him great glory).
He satisfies our years with good things, and our youth is renewed like the eagle.
The part about the eagle may seem unrelated to you, but to me it was one of the most powerful parts in its relatedness to my dream.
I was falling like a bird without wings. God gives me wings like the eagle. He renews me like an eagle. He redeems me… even though I deserve complete destruction in the pit of darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth.
This salvation, I want to see it in the life of every person I know. If you have read this, and you have experienced doubts in your life concerning where you will experience eternity, you are not alone. The good news is that Christ’s salvation is for you. Pursue Him with everything you have. Ask Him to invest in your life and save your soul. To save you from the pit of destruction that we all deserve.
To Christ be the glory, forever and ever, amen.
Cite: Faucett, D. (2018). A Scary Dream - A Powerful Christ. Faucett Journal. Retrieved from https://faucettjournal.com/articles/a-scary-dream-a-powerful-christ