Jesus dreams

Earlier this week I had one of those dreams that stick with you for longer than just a few minutes after you wake up.  Every time I thought of it for the next few days, my stomach turned.  I even felt a little weird when I was around the person that the dream was about.  I'm not going to go into details but it was just really disturbing.

The day after my bad dream (I don't know why I'm not calling this a nightmare...it just doesn't feel quite right), I found myself really dwelling on all the details of what went down.  I replayed it over and over in my mind.  I even took it past the dream.  I actually started thinking about what I would say to one of the people in the dream if I ever ran into them.  I planned out my next course of action in response to what took place.  I rehearsed my speech to the main person in the dream.  I silently reprimanded them for what they did.

I mean ARE YOU SERIOUS???  I think that I officially entered into Crazy Town.  It was A DREAM.  Once I snapped back to reality, what amazed me the most was the power of my thoughts and assumptions and psychoness (not a word).  It had actually put me in a defensive and prideful mood.  Boy did I sure tell those people off about something that never even happened.  It was insane.

Anyway, I was washing bottles when the sweet Holy Spirit gently convicted my soul of what I was willing participating in.  And man am I thankful.  I don't like driving through Crazy Town.  I really had to #1 Stop and get a hold of myself   #2 Repent   #3 Begin again to decide to take every thought captive #4  Finish washing the bottles.

Second Corinthians 10:4-5 says,

"For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.  We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ..."


I had to read that a few times.  The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh.  Boy if that isn't the truth.  This is powerful, people.  Our minds, our thoughts have the power to destroy strongholds.  Now I'm not in ANY way downing medicine, counseling, therapy, you name it...I majored in counseling...but what I am saying is that our battles begin and end in our minds.  As soon as I decided to give my dream to the Lord, the battle was over.  I didn't feel icky anymore.  I didn't have imaginary conversations anymore.  In fact, I began to pray for one of the people that I dreamed about because they are having some struggles in *real* life and it was actually the same person that I had just been going off on five minutes earlier.

"We destroy arguments (even if they are arguments with ourselves about things that never happened) and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God..."  And all of this happens in our minds.

So, the next time that you have a crazy dream, or you actually run into someone that you don't like, or someone hurts your feelings, or one of the million other things that happen to us on a daily basis that causes us to have warfare of the mind, remember to take your thoughts captive.  Don't let them win.  End it.  That's where sin begins and ends.

Stay out of Crazy Town.