I had a dream a few nights ago that I believe is a word from God.  This dream is not to be confused with the one I had a few weeks ago in which my friend Lumberjack had shaved his face and the next time I saw him his face was clean-shaven.  That was eerily prophetic.

A man and his friend were getting their mail, they were middle-aged and the man who was getting his mail was a former sinner, the good old-fashioned kind that drank too hard and treated people he loved with anger, lashing out at them.  He has been saved, and was glad to find in the mail a check from someone who had agreed to sponsor his new business venture.  He told his friend that he was going to just have the one sponsor, because while he needed more money he had given the situation over to God and he would work hard to make what he received this month last until next month.  Then he noticed that he had another piece of mail, and it was a check for $10,000, double what his sponsor has agreed to give him a month to help him put together his venture.  He started rejoicing, his friend joining him, thanking God.  Then he found more mail, and I knew that he was receiving more of these checks, which were each spontaneous donations from believers that felt compelled by the spirit to help this man begin a new life by showing him the provision of God.
I was not inside this part of the dream, I was watching with God.  He had taken me to this place to show me what he had given the man.  I was watching and I was cool with the man having a sponsor, but when God started giving him more checks I got self-righteous and judgmental.  I didn’t say it out loud in the dream, because I didn’t want to actually tell God that I didn’t think this man really needed so much money at this time, because he had a past of using his money for things that were… bad.  I thought that maybe it would have been wiser for God to give him installments. 
But God knew exactly what I was thinking, and while he was providing check upon check for this man he was laughing and excited.  He turned to me while the men were rejoicing and said “Don’t you see?  I want to give you what you ask for.  I know this man’s heart, and I trust him with my gifts.  His heart has been cleaned, it is clean while asking me for the ability to create his new business that I gave him the idea for.  I have given him these things and now he knows me.”
In all honesty, I’m not sure if God said these words exactly, but I know it was something close to it that he imprinted on my heart because as I was sliding through the haze towards conscious thought I got this big call in my spirit that said “This is a word from God“.  This woke me up at 3:30am, and since I was tired and lazy I stayed in my sleepiness and prayed and after a few hours fell back asleep.
Thoughts, Revelations, and Why I Believe this was a Word from God:

• I was strongly convicted of the judgment in my heart.  Who am I to ever even think that God is foolish? 
• In being strongly convicted of my sinful heart, I felt his grace during the dream on a large-scale.  It was like understanding that while God knew I felt bad about being sinful in that moment he filled me with the knowledge of his grace for me and spoke what was important into my heart.
• God is the God of second chances, of redemption, of kindness.  And he wants to be all of that for us now.
• Matthew 7 says to recognize whether or not something is healthy by its fruit.  During the time after this dream I have been spending time in the word because I want to know more of God, I have been worshiping, and I have been praying that God does a work in my heart that it will be more like his for people, even the ones that I sinfully cannot find any way to love.
• The dream does convict me, but it also exhorts me to live like this man who I was judgmental towards: putting all hope, all trust, all plans at the foot of the cross and rejoicing in whatever it is that we receive from our Lord.
• 1 John 4:2&3 – “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”   The dream was an illustration of how God not only wants to give us a new life, but we have one because of his son.  The man in my dream had given his heart over to Christ and had turned from his ways of a sinner in order to have the new life promised through the blood. 

Trust in the LORD, and do good;
   dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.
 Delight yourself in the LORD,
   and he will give you the desires of your heart.  – Psalm 37:3&4

This verse combined with the story in Luke of the sinful woman who washed the feet of Christ with her tears and her hair assure my spirit that I’m not going completely crazy.  This dream agrees with the scriptures, and speaks to their truth.  It has been a light to the darkness in my heart, shown me the depths of God’s mercy and grace, and how much he wants to give to his children. 

“You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”  – Luke 7:46-48