One winter evening in 2012, I asked God if he could give me a prophetic dream to bolster my faith, because I had just read a story of a prophet in the Old Testament that caused me to seriously doubt whether it really happened. In hindsight my request seems a bit selfish, because other than my lack of faith there was no reason I needed a dream. Yet I still prayed passionately because I felt skepticism creeping in, and I didn't like that. So after making the request, I fell off to sleep.
Shortly before waking, I had a vivid dream. In the dream I was driving a snowmobile in a field, and Brenda was sitting behind me. At one point we stopped and gazed at the back of a ranch style house that looked like ours, except this house was white, while ours was blue. After a short pause, we rode in a large oval circuit in the field and came around again. At the same place we again stopped and looked at the house. Only this time I noticed that the patio door blinds were now closed and swinging as if they had just been closed. Suddenly I felt embarrassed because I realized that the people living there must have noticed me staring at the house on the previous pass, and closed the blinds. Then I woke up. I immediately mentioned to Brenda that I had just had a vivid dream. I told her that I had prayed for a prophetic dream, but this one certainly didn't seem prophetic. In fact, I have never ridden on a snowmobile, and I doubted it would happen anytime soon.
About a week or two later, I was working on my laptop computer by our patio doors at dusk. It was getting dark in the house, and I hadn't turned on any lights yet.
Enough time had passed that I had all but forgotten about the dream.
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It was then that a snowmobile with two riders appeared in the field behind the house. They swung around and stopped. It seemed to me that they were staring at me. I assumed they could see everything, including my laptop computer and our television in the other room. I wondered why they were staring. It occurred to me they might be tempted to steal something, so when they left I closed the blinds and went to peer out the kitchen window. I didn't expect the snowmobile to return, but they swung around and stopped again in the same place. It was then that I noticed that the blinds were still swinging from having been closed, and realized that the riders were seeing that also, which made me wish that I hadn't closed them. Then the riders left and did not return.
It was only then, at that moment, that I remembered my dream and realized it had just been fulfilled in every detail, except in reality our house was blue while in the dream it was white! Otherwise, even the terrain was the same, as was the path the snowmobile followed, and the swinging of the blinds. I had just experienced the fulfillment of the dream from a totally different perspective.
As a result of the dream, I now gained a new understanding. I now believed that the snowmobile riders had not seen me sitting at the table, nor seen the laptop or TV, nor had it occurred to them they might be invading our privacy. On the second trip, when they noticed the swinging blinds
they
probably
then
experienced
the
same
embarrassment that I had known in the dream.
In the end, I understood that God had answered my request for a prophetic dream, but I also realized that God was apparently not calling me to be a prophet or he would have given me a dream with more significance for others.
The lesson I learned is simply to not doubt that God is able to communicate to us, and it is my job to simply trust that he will reveal what we need to know when the time is right.
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Proving a dream
More recently, I experienced another prophetic dream indirectly. It was not my dream, but I like it because it is something that anyone can verify. In other words, anyone reading this can prove its truth with the help of the Internet.
For me it became a small gift of faith, and I include it here because I believe it can also become a gift of faith for others.
On April 25, 2018, I stumbled upon a YouTube video only a few hours after it was posted. In the course of the video, the man who posted it said, “Last night … I prayed to God, ‘Give me a dream, something that I can share with everybody.” Then he went on to say he dreamed a vivid and memorable dream. The video-maker then opened with a simple prayer and shared a couple of Bible verses, followed by some other unrelated ramblings. I am not trying to be harsh, it is just that he likes to ramble. He then began to talk about the dream, which I quote in part here:
“Okay, I am going to tell you about the dream I had. …I just felt like God put something on me, and I fell to my knees and I just started crying out to people that things were happening – like things were happening right then and there….and there were all these gas lines rupturing –
bursting – and causing fires all over. But the thing with those gas lines rupturing – they weren’t, or at least they said they weren’t caused by earthquakes. And it was happening all over that these gas lines were bursting. And for some reason I got Wisconsin in my head, but maybe that was because of that drill that they’re doing, I don’t know.”
And then he went on to describe other aspects of the dream that don't seem related. Then finally he told us that he felt compelled to share the dream.
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After watching the video, I didn't know what to make of it, and promptly forgot most of it. But then, the very next day, on April 26, a gasoline refinery in Wisconsin experienced a series of major explosions, shaking the ground for miles around, and injuring many. So it seemed the dream was right because there were major gas explosions in Wisconsin. And then, the author of the video posted another video in which he noted the fulfillment of his dream. So for those who wish to investigate further, the title of the video on Youtube was, “A Dream, A Message and Some Predictions,” and it was posted on the channel, “To Those Who Will Listen.” This video was the first time I had watched one of his videos.
I relate this story here because not only did this person experience a prophetic dream, but I experienced it also indirectly, since God allowed me to watch the video before the dream was fulfilled, thus increasing my faith also.
Again, it is not very often that you can document something supernatural with hard facts, so here is a video that anyone can watch on YouTube to increase their faith, and anyone can search out the news accounts of the explosions. After all, don't we all struggle at times with the balance between skepticism and faith? •
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