Here's the dream:
A handsome boy is sitting on a treasure chest at the bottom of a swimming pool filled with water, pondering. Someone from outside the pool, lights a fuse running from the treasure chest but it starts burning from the chest up and out of the water, instead of from the outside down. When the boy sees the fire running up the fuse, he realizes it's going to explode and kill him so he swims as hard as he can up to the surface and the second before it explodes, he rolls out of the pool. The dream ended here. I titled it: Sin kills from the Inside Out
Here's what I sensed God was saying to me through this dream:
Sin comes to tempt you from outside of yourself sometimes, but also it lives within and once it is triggered from outside, it ignites inside. It can kill not only you but all around you. Once you are aware of it, the best thing you can do is to extricate yourself from it as quickly as possible to avoid destruction.
I think because the book i'm reading on Lent is focusing on my sin, that is why i had this dream...to see the bigger, overall impact of sin on my life and others. I wonder what the boy was pondering while at the bottom of the pool? What should he do next? Maybe the dangers of sitting too close to sin and pondering, harboring it in your heart? And how dangerous that is, or something about making a decision to sin? He might have been pondering the treasures of his ministry (treasure chest= treasure, water=ministry in the dream world) and how easily he could have become prideful about his ministry which would have triggered the fuse to ignite, which could very quickly explode his ministry and even himself.
I also thought about the verse that says, "Where your treasure is, there will you heart be also." Is what i do my treasure? Or Whom I serve? If it is what i do, that can so easily lead to pride and pride goes before a fall...pride puffs me up and then I could "explode." What makes all the difference in this scenario is my focus. Is my focus on MY ministry and what I have accomplished or on what God has accomplished in me, through me.
When I asked God what He wanted me to know for me personally from my dream, He's what i sensed in my spirit:
First of all, you need to recognize that even though I've given you a new heart, you still do sin. Confession is the key I've given you to unlock the treasure chest of your heart and let the sin out before it kills. The sarcasm you used the other day hurt your relationship with that person...and hurt your heart even more than theirs when you realized how it might have come across. You thought you were being funny, but it didn't translate that way. You didn't think you were a sarcastic person but just when you think "I'm not capable of THAT, or I would never say THAT," THAT is when the enemy sees a crack in your armor (hello pride!) and shoots his fiery dart. Your words can kill or heal so be intentional with them, using words of honor, respect and value always.
Be aware...when you sin, confess quickly to the person because that allows you to walk in humility instead of pride. And know you will sin because you have not yet entered Glory and been perfectly perfected. Do not let the enemy deceive you by looking at how you don't sin (like the Pharisee and the tax collector) thinking that because you don't do THAT sin, you DON'T sin. Remember when you judge others, that judgment lands right back on you. My principle of sowing and reaping works in the negative as well as the positive.
