I would appreciate your input into a dream I just had before I woke up this morning, but first, a little of the back story. I have been out of work for 6 months, I am 60 years old, and God has made it clear it is time for my 41 year construction career to come to an end, and that I need to do some thing else. Since God told me to leave construction, I have made several attempts to go back do to financial need, but all have failed. We have in this same season, dealt with the loss of our apartment to mold, my wife being hospitalized for 4 days form shingles, and she is currently dealing with a massive dental infection, and we have no dental insurance. We have been living in and out of hotels during this time, relying on the Lord and the generosity of others, and have had to spend two nights in a vehicle when funds were not available for a hotel.
Now to the dream. I was standing on the roof of what was between a 3 and 5 story building judging by the distance to the ground. I had lost my check out of my hands, and it was gently spinning as it slowly headed for the ground. After it had gone down about a third of the way, I began calling out to the people below, at least two of them being police officers and two being civilians, trying to get their attention and catch my check, but for some reason, the could not hear me. As it landed on the ground in front of a female police officer, I also began waving my hands over my head. She saw the check, picked it up, and started looking around, and quickly noticed me waving my hands and acknowledged that she knew it belonged to me. Though during the check's fall, the check was not attached to a piece of paper that would be the stub I would retain for my records, when she picked it up off the parking lot, it was now attached to this kind of stub, and she folded the stub portion over the back of the check, and looked at it briefly before putting it in her back pants pocket. I immediately turned to my left to run down and get it, but almost instantly, there was a woman standing in front of me who was having some body image problems, beleaving she would not be selected for something because she was not beautiful enough. Though she was not a beauty queen, she certainly was not ugly by any stretch of the imagination. This is when I woke up.
As I prayed about this dream, several things have come to mind. First, years ago, I took a job aptitude test, and the two professions that came back for me were fire fighter and law enforcement, though both of those I am too old and physically challenged to apply for at 60. That said, I tend to be very big on encouraging people to do what is right and obey both the laws of our land as well as God's word. In addition, my wife has a desire to reach out to women with low self esteem because she herself has struggled with it due to a facial deformity caused by complications from her mother's abortion attempt on her life 50 years ago, and yet knows that in God's eyes, and in my eyes, she is "wonderfully beautiful".
Anyway, I would again appreciate your prayerful input! Blessings in our wonderfully beautiful and merciful Messiah!!!
The law was saving my wages for me, I just needed to go collect them. God is bound by His word, He can not break it, and though we can never earn our salvation by doing the law, God desires us to be conformed to the image of Christ, and turn from disobedience to obedience. As Roman 6 a 1 John 3:4 and following and Matthew 5 clearly state in harmony with one another....we are not to "continue in sin that grace may abound", and Jesus did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill (keep) it. Sin is the "transgression of the law", or in other words, "lawlessness". He came to set us free from sin, not to leave us perpetually sinning and in bondage to sin.
Richard, it appeared to me as I read your dream that this was illustrating the gospel message in some way for it had to do with wages lost and the law putting them in her own pocket. These scriptures came to mind:
Romans 6:20-23: "For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Galatians 6:7-8: "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life."
Romans 8:1-8, 12-14: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God... 12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God."