This was written by Steve Brown in 2016, on a day when he was praying and meditating. Used with permission. You can read about his battle with Leukemia here.
I had a vivid dream the other the day, and in this dream I saw a man walking. He was a person like me and you. But then something began to happen to him. His flesh began to melt away, and his body began turning black. His body became all black except in some areas there were holes, and a bright light shone out of them.
As I kept looking at the body the black areas began to turn red and thorns began to sprout out of the red places where his skin once was. Then chains began to form and hooked themselves to the thorns, and the chains stretched behind this man and lay on the ground.
Attached to the chains were blocks of different sizes and each block had letters on it. I could not read the writing on the blocks. The chains and blocks were black and crimson and varied in size and length.
Then a cross began to be etched in the man’s back, but it was only a partial cross, the whole cross wasn’t etched into his body. In his right hand was a book that shone a bright, projected beam of light, but it also had blood dripping from it. Then a bright light shone from the heavens and covered the whole scene.
I prayed and asked God to reveal to me the meaning of the dream, and the next night he gave me the answer. In this dream a man as bright as the sun came to me and said do not look upon me – it is not time yet. He told me this man I saw in the dream was me as I am now. He said for me to listen carefully and to digest every word that came from his mouth.
He said I used to be dark and black with sin but then I was saved and born again by the blood of the Lamb and his Holy Spirit. He said the red areas on my body are his cleansing blood that cover a multitude of sins, and the light shining out of my body is the light of his Holy Spirit that now resides in me.
He went on to tell me that the thorns are my weakness in the flesh I have not been willing or able to overcome. He told me these will to continue to cause me much pain if I don’t pull them out. He said the chains are the attachments that I have to the world and to certain sins. He said I will never be the effective Christian that I’ve been called to be as long as I allow these to bind me.
The blocks, he said, were weights with the names of the particular sins I have allowed to weigh me down, such as lust, greed, and pride. He said there are other thorns, chains, and blocks far behind you on this path that you can’t see, and these are the ones you have overcome by the blood of the Lamb and your testimony.
The cross on you is only partially etched because it hurt, and you could not bear the pain. The bright light that shone from Heaven is the Father’s light that is talked about in 1st John in which you walk every day.
The book in your right hand is the Bible that flows with my blood from cover to cover and the words are a light unto your path. Farther up the path is a new body and peace and perfection you have never known, but just had glimpses of here in your walk.
Then there is also the Father, and I who will be waiting for you. So, put this world and its enticements behind you, cut loose from the sins that so easily beset you. Take up your cross fully. It may hurt but it will only be for a little while, and take my yoke upon you, for it is easy and my burden is light.
Don’t ever forget that you are our child, and nothing can ever take you from us, not even Satan himself because you have been sealed to the day of redemption and your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
We love you, God speed my child.
Pressing on, Steve Brown
