Dreaming of the Mountaintop

Lately I've been having really powerful dreams, and I know that God is speaking through them. I don't quite know what they mean, but I need to be recording them better so that when His work is revealed, I can look back and see what He meant.

The night before last, it was this scene: I went to a friend's house (not a friend from my real life, just a random stand-in friend) and was there with her when her mom came in. Her mom said she'd sold her soul to the devil (literally) and owed him some money. She owed him $100 but only had $13.25, and he was to be at the door at any moment. She was casual about not having his money, and decided it was so not a big deal that one of us, meaning myself or my friend, would hand it to him while she was upstairs getting ready. Now, even as someone who isn't as strong a believer as I'd like to be, I knew that my friend wasn't mature enough to resist the enemy, so I said I'd do it. Before I knew it, there he was. Someone else opened the heavy door, leaving only the glass between pure evil and my frail human body.

He was disgusting. Putrid. Radiated hatred and malice and sheer horror. And he was staring right at me, almost through me.

Did you ever have a conversation with hell itself? Because I did. He was so mad at me (I'm not sure if it was because I call myself a Christ-follower or because I didn't have all the money he wanted) that he started shooting blue lightening from his fingertips at me. Soon it was coming at me from all of his form, like some sort of wicked aura. And do you know what I did?

I cried out to my Jesus in the words of a Hillsong United song I learned at the Rowells:

"You are my Shield, my Strength, my Portion, Deliverer,
My Shelter, Strong Tower, my very present help in time of need."

And an invisible, literally shield-shaped cover came over me. And I laughed in the face of hell. Because he knows my Jesus too, and knows that no matter what happens to me, it's not in his hands.

Then I woke up, and I've been kicking this dream around in my head for a few days. Today in church, it hit me. He made me to stand against the rusty gates of hell, to rattle them in defiance, and to stand firm. I must not be moved.

I have not been living as a warrior, and it brought me to a place of repentance. The hounds of heaven have pursued me relentlessly, my Father's voice calling. The prodigal has come home.