In the dream, Cathy and I and John and Sheri (our friends who have been coming to Sunday School lately) were at a restaurant. I never knew what restaurant it was, even while I was dreaming it, and I don't remember what we were doing exactly (I don't remember us eating anything). My kids were not with us (not unusual, since they hang out with their Meme sometimes when we go out.) Suddenly in the middle of whatever we were doing, there was a loud BANG that I thought of at the time as a "sonic boom" but it was extremely loud and sharp, like a gunshot from a really high-power gun. Not like a long BOOOOOOOOM but like a short POW!!! that went right through us. I looked up, and I could clearly see the horizon as though there were no wall any more to the room we were in. Not looking out a window; just no wall. The sky was bright, although not painfully glaringly bright; I'd say morning-like, although there was no indication one way or another whether we had been at breakfast or up early. I remember fluffy white clouds. I do not remember seeing the sun or any sun rays, but the sky was definitely lit. Between the clouds and us, far in the distance, I could see Jesus. He was a cartoon character! He was flat like a cutout, and looked sort of like anime, although He was so far away that He was tiny and I couldn't make out too many details. He was smiling and very happy. He was not animated like a cartoon on TV; He was motionless, not even visibly getting nearer. The light in the sky did not appear to be coming from Him. I got SO excited when I saw Him that I was jumping up and down, and you know I'm not generally the jumping up and down type. And that was the end! I woke up excited and happy! In the dream there was no indication at all that the cartoon character was not actually Jesus, and although nothing else in the dream was a cartoon, it didn't seem strange to me at all at the time that He was a cartoon. In the dream I was definitely positive that it was Jesus Himself. The overall impression that I woke up was that Jesus is on the way, not any feeling of seeing a counterfeit Jesus or anything like that.The interpretation that I received after praying about it had to do with the fact that we had been studying a book about how God should move in miracles in our daily life as a sign to unbelievers. Inspired by the Lakeland revival that was occurring at the time, we had been praying for a revival move of God at our church. The meaning of my dream was that when God moved, it was going to look totally different from what I expected... as different as the real Jesus would be from a cartoon character version of Him. The things that happened two weeks ago fit that bill... I would have never predicted that a move of God on our class would be quite like that one was. It was amazing! And the next time, I expect it will be more amazing and unexpected still. We serve a God of endless creativity; I can't wait to see how He will surprise me next!
Friday, September 12, 2008
My Dream Of Jesus' Second Coming
Last Sunday as we were discussing the events of the week before in Sunday school, I was reminded of a dream I had last summer. I dreamed about Jesus' Second Coming. The next day I mentioned it to my Sunday school teacher Shelley, just offhand, not even thinking anything of it, just that it was a cool dream. She immediately emailed me back wanting to know the details; she said she thought it might have significance to what was happening at Grace Church. When she said that, I immediately knew she was right; I don't always have "spiritual" dreams (last night, for example, I dreamed of throwing rolls of toilet paper at people's heads!) but occasionally I do, and it turns out this was one of them.Here's the dream, as I described it in an email to Shelley on July 1:
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In the Old Testament, Daniel prophesied that the Messiah would descend with the clouds of heaven. When Jesus came to the world, He did not descend with the clouds. He came physically through an ordinary woman, Mary. However, as soon as Jesus was baptized, heaven opened and the Spirit of God descended on him. The prophecy was fulfilled by the descend of the Holy Spirit from heaven and not His physical body descending from heaven.
When Jesus Christ ascended to heaven, the Apostles were told “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. Jesus has returned very shortly after, i.e. during Pentecost. He came back in the form of Holy Spirit descending from heaven, not physically descending from heaven.
If Jesus has returned, why did the Apostles still talk about His coming in their Epistles as well as in the Revelations? The coming of the Lord, the coming of Christ and similar expressions refer primarily to the judgment of God on all man. This judgment happens in the life time of all man. James wrote in his Epistle that the Lord’s coming is near, the Judge is standing at the door! (James 5:8-9) If this is referring to a physical coming at the end of the world, it could not be described as near, and certainly not at the door. It is at the door of every man because it will happen in their life time.
I recently discovered Jesus in my life in my belief. I believe that God was always part of my life,in my early childhood I could say I overcame sicknesses and accidents, where i today believe that I had a protection angel, a messenger of God protecting me. Up to now, when I turned 46 years I feel a presence of God and his angels around me.
Not long ago, I had doubts in Jesus and his mission on earth. But I always wanted to get to the roots of this doubt, it was like itching me and I thought that this doubt was not satisfying at all. I started to search for Jesus and search for his purpose to make my belief in God complete, to gain complete satisfaction in my belief. I started to read the bible, and from there I started to gain knowledge and this knowledge made me more curious and with my curiosity I was like chasing Jesus in the holy bible, searching for Jesus and his most meaningful mission on earth. At any time in my free time, I almost rip off the pages of my bible and read and read and read, through the old testament and the new testament,repeatedly read texts as I am so eager to find Jesus and his purpose coming. I am from Austria, a little country in the heart of Europe, mainly inhabited by Catholics. This country went through tough times in history. Austria took part in the mass killing of the Jews, which has happened already in the middle ages. Then later in the second world war, Austria took part in the murder of millions of Jews sending them to concentration camps.
Coming from a post - war generation, I grew up with the perception, that those Austrians and Germans, who took part in the killing of Jews were devious and that some even were passive perpetrators. I developed a deep compassion towards the murdered jews. My mother tongue is German, thats why my English is not very accurate, but I try my best.
Anyway since I have occupied myself with Jesus and since my faith in Jesus grew and grew, I dream about him. My last dream was yesterday night. I dreamed that he came from heaven and he was all 3 in one. It was him, but it was also God himself and his appearence was so bright and full of a gleaming white light, shining like a star, blending and at the same time I could see his face. I remember i left the house. people were standing outside the houses as everybody was drawn to him by his appearence. I saw people standing there,staring at his bright glooming feature. Everybody was overwhelmed by God/Jesus/spirit, people were in awe. I saw his expression in his face, his face was shining like a beaming star with bright millions of varying lights. When I looked at him, I recognized, that he was angry,and I felt his anger was towards my sins. I fell on the ground and i felt so small and so meaningless, with so much fear, he could reject me. He started to point out at people who gathered around him.He selected the ones who he wanted to take to him, and some who he pointed at,I recognized, he did not want to take to him. Then he pointed at me and i was so much afraid, that i would be send away too. In the moment he pointed at me, I saw the anger and disappointment in his eyes. But the dream then continued when i felt a kind of relief as I was then all of a sudden on a kind of seating area on the top of an auditorium, sitting together with others, who got the same privilege. Then I saw people on the bottom of this auditorium who were like mourning and crying, holding each other,as if they had no chances anymore. Then i felt like that I maybe was not one of chosen ones who God will take immediately to him, but that i had a chance to come to him,but have to pass some more lessons he would give to me. Then I woke up,
Anonymous, what an interesting story and beautiful dream! My belief is that Jesus' sacrifice paid the penalty once and for all for the sins of each of us, so although Jesus of course does not want us to sin, I do not think He condemns us for it when we do. He experienced all of the temptations that we do as human beings, understands that we sometimes fall (although He never did), and has made a way for each of us to be with Him. I don't think He picks and chooses us; I think we pick and choose whether to accept His sacrifice for us. Some would disagree with me, but I don't think our access to Jesus depends on our performance; it all depends on His performance, and His performance was perfect.
I came across your blog while searching for my own answers to the "dreams" I was given almost 15 years ago. I had these dreams from my late teens to my early twenties. I really prefer to call them "visions", though I was sleeping when they occurred. The dream began with everyday "life as usual"...people working, playing, driving down the road. Then, suddenly and without warning, myself and everyone around me were brought to Gods presence. God light was blinding, in the sense that you could not look upon HIm with your earthly eyes. His light permeated every ounce of space, you could not recognise anything else. The light also permeated every cell of my being, like it should have burned me, yet I was not burned. I did not need to question what was happening, I just knew, everything, in an instant. I fell to my knees, and words of praise, words of seeking forgivness, just rolled off my tongue, without the need for thought first. The feeling I had was a pure AWE i have never experienced. It consisted of ALL feelings together...joy, love, fear, sadness, excitement. Although I could not even see the hand in front of my face, I knew there were MANY others who were around me in the same state. (I think the reason I could not see my body or the bodies of others is because we were in a spirit state, not a physical one). The next thing I experienced was the angelic music of Heaven. I have never, nor will I ever, hear anything like it on Earth! The best way I can describe it is like this; If you had 5000 record players, and on each player was a record of different songs, some instrumental, some with singing. Some fast, some slow, all different genres. Now imagine you played all 5000 records at once! I tell you that is how it was, and you would think it would sound terrible because there were too many sounds happening at one time, but it was the most in-sync, glorious sound that I will ever hear!
I havent had this dream for some time now, but it is just as vivid in my mind. I don't know why I was given this experience, but I hope that sharing it with you will bring all closer to what we were meant to be.
As an early teen, maybe 13, I dreamed about the 2nd coming two times, I think about a week or month apart. Note: I was raised in a very confusing extreme fundamentalist physically, sexually, spiritually, emotionally abusive environment so there have been times when I wondered if these dreams were influenced by the confusing religious beliefs we were forced, yes forced, to accept. If we did not accept them, we were shunned, dismissed, forced to pray or be punished physically, forced to lie even though we knew the truth or punished until we said what was expected.
The first dream was a reality version of the rapture. Jesus came through the clouds and people were rising in the air to meet him. I observed all this but I was left behind. I was already a Christian through the prayer for salvation. I was terrified and felt that I could never know the whole truth.(This was also how I was beginning to think in waking life because I could never get it right enough for others) If I was sincerely a Christian how could this happen.
In the second dream, I saw a cartoon (animated) version of Jesus 2nd coming on a cloud. This time I was taken onto the cloud to be right with Jesus and a group of other children. We played and talked with Jesus and Jesus love was shown to me the way I had always wished and dreamed about in real life, as I was raised in an abusive home.
Now I had two dreams to try to understand - in reality I may not be going to heaven but in animation anything is possible? Or in reality you can't just go to heaven - you have to be on the inside somehow and have the right information, the right connections, the right way of thinking about it. (I thought I did have the right information and I tried hard to understand it and live it, and I asked God to show me, and to serve God/Jesus and love others as God loved me and believe that Christ died for me. I was a very confused teenager)
Or like in the animation, people can believe things that look good, feel good, like candy but like reality - its just make believe - or not everyone who thinks they're going to heaven is really going there.
So I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't have to be all that complicated. Christ died for me, I accept Him as my Savior and try to be a servant to others around me, loving and caring for others. I may not understand everything but having faith like a child is what is required - I can do that. God bless :)
Ninas - reading back through what I wrote and what you wrote about "cartoon character Jesus" - I would suggest that it might be interesting to apply what I realized about my "cartoon Jesus" might be the same thing you could realize about yours. Maybe the REAL Jesus looks a little different from what people in the "reality" around you think he looks like. It certainly was that way when Jesus was on this planet; I don't think anyone expected Jesus to be a guy who walked around and loved people until they killed Him. They seemed to think he was going to be a violent conquering warlord of some type. These days I think people tend to see God as a judgmental figure who wants to show each of us all of our faults (as though we won't have a very clear picture of our own faults already!) when the God of the Bible seems more interested in showing us that He cares for us and wants to help us to become what He created us to be - and living the life God created us to live is the ultimate joy, not the ultimate guilt trip.
So, maybe your "cartoon" Jesus is the real Jesus, and your "reality" Jesus is actually the caricature!
Hi Michael....Thank you for responding so quickly....
" ....the God of the Bible seems more interested in showing us that He cares for us and wants to help us to become what He created us to be - and living the life God created us to live is the ultimate joy, not the ultimate guilt trip.
So, maybe your "cartoon" Jesus is the real Jesus, and your "reality" Jesus is actually the caricature!"
Guilt trips are way too expensive and besides its already Covered.
It is healing to receive this kind of affirmation....I sensed you were praying as you wrote your response and it took me back there and touched that spot again - with healing.
You are right, sadly so many people still think God has a hammer. My dad associated God's love with pain and suffering which to him was character building and becoming a stronger Christian. This justified his behavior towards us - "I can hurt whoever I want in my own house" in the name of Christianity. But no one should hurt him. He did not connect love with gentleness, peace and kindness even though he was kinder when we were very young. It wasn't demonstrated for him as he grew up either.
The reality dream was chaos and destruction, judgement and hell. It would seem that the spirit of the real Jesus was in my cartoon dream - the spirit of Love was absolutely there.
I do like to think of Jesus in human form - probably because of those kind, loving eyes and the images of Him being so gentle towards people and animals. We needed to see that because of our humanness. I also like to think of Jesus as spirit because we are in God's likeness. We are really Spirit being filled with His Spirit.
I find that I am coming back to the Jesus of my early childhood, the greatness of God as I understood then - the vastness - the Jesus I learned about in Sunday School before the extreme abuses began. On my very first day of Sunday School, the first thing my teacher did when she walked in the room was give each of us our own New Testament and told each of us individually - "I want you to always remember that Jesus/God loves you." This is a loving Jesus, and intellectually I know, but hopefully I'll experience some day that God is that same Love. I know that it is because of what I experienced from my dad. And I have to remember that my dad was/is not God. Now that my parents have passed, I believe they know the truth about all this.
These three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Always. Its a Promise. :) Thank you for letting me share. Carol
So happy I read this and that other people have dreamed of jesus in cartoon form as well.
Recently I had a dream where I was on a boat with some people and a massive wave came and whipped us out..Then I remember seeing a gate and seeing jesus and a few others standing in front I only remember seeing jesus face though.. it was pale blue and in cartoon form. I just remember being so extremely happy and like i understood life. I hugged him and touched his face and cried happy tears.. I then entered the gates but could see spirits bouncing off the gate like they were trying to get in but couldn't so I remember getting worried that my family were not with me.. then I woke up. Was such a powerful dream and I never get dreams so awesome to hear other people's experiences
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