Conquering nightmares

We’ve been talking about dreams in the last 3 blogs – I had the worst nightmare recently. I’m not into guns, but somehow I got a rifle. I was trying to figure out how to shoot it and accidentally shot a close friend. After the shock, they carted me off to jail and I awoke with a pounding heart, asking, “Did that just happen?” It was awful.

And then I was left with the thought, “Does this mean anything? I can tell you, I won’t be picking up a gun anytime soon!

In Africa, even non-Christians know that dreams may have spiritual significance. Jenny Dawson relates the following story about what she did when her South African students had nightmares:

“We had a great week of camp last week. We had about 50 kids each day, which was a lot more manageable than the 200 we had the week before!

“I went off for awhile to pray, and asked God what He would say to these kids if He could physically stand in front of them. And then I heard it. He said, ‘Tell them I see them.’ Just that one sentence.

“I wasn’t satisfied, so I asked for a bit more. He answered, ‘Tell them I see them at night.’ Again, I didn’t feel like I was fully understanding what He meant. Then, once I just sat silently and waited, God explained Himself. He told me that the kids have nightmares and are terrorized at night. He said that they are tormented by the devil and fear and He wanted it to stop. The daily lesson at camp was that God protects, and God Himself was telling me that He was there to protect these children from the enemy. He was very serious, almost fierce about what He was telling me. It was not to be shrugged off or watered down. I was to bring His word to the ones He wanted desperately to protect.

“I stood in front of the kids and told them that I used to suffer from really bad nightmares and fear of the dark when I was little. I talked to them about how awesome and powerful God is and how He is bigger than the enemy.

“Then, I asked the question that I wasn’t sure would really even yield a response. I asked the kids who had bad dreams or who were scared at night to come up for prayer. Almost all of them came forward. A lot of them heard voices every night, and they knew it was the devil scaring them. It’s crazy how spiritually sensitive children in Africa are, even as young as 5 and 6 year olds. A lot of their families are still involved in ancestry worship and witchcraft. These kids were not laughing or joking around when they came forward…they wanted God’s protection.

“We prayed for them individually, and then as a group. God even spoke to Theresa, the missionary lady that we have been working with, and said that we were the spiritual covering for those kids while we were there and we needed to fight for them in prayer. We taught them to say the name of Jesus when they were afraid and that every demon would have to leave.

“We came back the next day to hear the testimonies of many of the kids who said that for the first time they can remember, they slept peacefully through the night. I would love to have seen the angels God placed in those bedrooms! My God protects and He cares about the things we would otherwise overlook.”