The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is one who speaks mysteries in the night. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He gave dreams to His servants in the Old and New Testament, and He does the same in our day. In the first chapter of the book of Matthew, we read of how God spoke to Joseph in a dream and told him to take Mary as his wife. The dream was powerful enough to convince an uncertain and frightened man that his betrothed wife was carrying the Son of God.

Our Bound4Life movement began when a young man dreamt of thousands of people in front of the Supreme Court wearing a piece of tape over their mouth that read “LIFE.” He was among a company of intercessors who, under the leadership of Lou Engle, decided to take the dream seriously and act it out in real life. They went to the Supreme Court, slapped tape over their mouths, and “did the dream!” The rest is history, and that dream is being lived out in front of courthouses and clinics throughout our nation.

I am a firm believer in following your dreams.  However, I don’t believe all dreams come from divine inspiration. Ecclesiastes 5:3 says, “A dream comes when there are many cares.” Sometimes our dreams are a mess of the day’s worries and the future’s concerns. Yet there are other nights when we are visited by God, and we wake with a sense that something supernatural has come upon us .

Last night, I dreamt I was in front of my local Planned Parenthood standing on the grass. Anyone who sidewalk counsels or attends silent sieges understands that the grass is off limits. The sidewalk is public property, and that’s the only place we’re allowed to stand. However in this dream, I was on the grass near an open window in the building. A voice called to me from inside and told me to come near. I did and was met by three Planned Parenthood workers.  An African-American woman looked at me from inside the window and confrontationally said, “You know we can’t hear you, right?' I knew she was referring to our siege because it is a silent prayer meeting. She wanted me to know that they couldn’t hear me, and therefore they felt what we did was ineffective. To this I replied, “It doesn’t matter if you can hear us. God hears our voices.” She walked away, and another worker stayed. This one began to open up and tell me she saw the babies when they were aborted. She mentioned how they had soft downy hair on their bodies. When I asked her why she continued to do this when it was murder, she gave no answer. She just sat down in a chair and told me she prayed before she went to bed every night. I walked away from the window with compassion in my heart towards her.

There was more to the dream, but the part I mentioned carries a significant message.  The worker wanted me to know she couldn’t hear me in order to discourage me from taking my stand. Yet in confidence, I declared the God of heaven and earth heard my prayers, and that is all that mattered. While one worker’s heart was hardened, the other woman was tender and felt some conviction for her actions. I could easily write it off as a simple dream. Yet I choose to believe it was more. It was an encouragement from heaven saying “Your labor is not in vain.  Your prayers are moving hearts and changing mindsets.” I don’t know what goes on inside the clinic when I pray. When we can’t see anything happening, it’s easy to assume nothing is changing. Dreams can give us insight into the things we cannot see and encouragement to keep going.  

God desires to share His secrets with us while we sleep.  In Joel 2:28, He says, “I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”  I had a dream a few years ago that an abortion clinic was opening in our city, before it happened. When it did open, I was prepared and ready because I had been warned beforehand.

Don’t discount the dreams God gives you. You may not understand them, but pray into them and ask for revelation. When I lived in D.C with the Justice House of Prayer interns, one of my young friends had a dream where God told her the name of the next Supreme Court judge before President Bush or anyone in Washington had announced it. He gave that important information to an 18 year old girl because He considered her a friend. He will do the same for you.  Ask for dreams about the government, your local abortion doctor, the kids in your school, the nation. When you get them, write them down and pray about how to take action. If you can do the dream, then be brave and do it! If one man’s dream led to a grassroots mobilization movement for the ending of abortion, what could yours do?