dreams

Azahar, COVID, Militia...

Posted on 28th October, 202028th October, 2020
by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

In the next few days I will have a guest writer here, Gayle, who will post about a dream she had recently. I have a few ‘key’ dreams per year that help me understand some aspect or I gain a new perspective. There is a common ‘place’ I visit in dreams and when there gain an insight I have never had before, so the dream always contains a surprise. The element of newness and surprise is always underlined in that those present do not get the revelation at all, and the place is known for the prophetic and response to God. We all see in part and given the nature of the people at the place not getting the revelation it symbolically shows there is always new revelation. A few a year, but Gayle has many. We have our apartment in Oliva resulting from two dreams she had, including one that had her typing in a (previously unknown) Spanish word ‘azahar’ into a google map to show someone where we live. 700metres away from our apartment in Oliva on the sign pointing toward our apartment is the very word ‘azahar’ (orange blossom).

Earlier this year we were sent a dream concerning the COVID virus and its path. The person who sent it had been praying about two things a) COVID and b) how would God communicate times and seasons in an urban / Western setting (in contrast to Pharaoh and the agricultural setting, with cows and grain).

The dream has been for us very key in understanding the phases the virus is currently and will go through.

Anyway… dreams. They are fascinating. Recently we read of one that showed the rise of civil war in their land, complete with militia on the streets, with the twist that God was standing behind these militia to give them success, effectively returning ‘the nation to God’. Wow! How does one interpret that?

Dreams can be from God and show us what we had never considered before. They can be from ‘God’ (maybe, or from our own ‘soul’) showing us more about ourselves than about God’s desire / plan for what is to come.

Our theological convictions of course affect how we interpret a dream. If violence is one of God’s normal tools, and there is a time to pick up the sword for the Gospel we will go one way with the interpretation… if the path of non-violent resistance is seen as the Jesus’ (third-)way then we will go another way. (Someone known to some of the readers of this blog, Charles Strohmer, has responded to the theology of ‘get a sword’ very eloquently here):

“Arms and the Man” v. “Put up thy Sword”: Tough Questions for Rick Joyner, Jim Bakker, and the Prophetic Movement

We need to be challenged concerning our beliefs when we present a dream, we need to be open to them being about us, not a ‘God-dream’. We all see in part, and the lack of sight is often springing from my distorted alignment and any allegiance that sits alongside my allegiance to Christ (hence my view on not taking an oath in court or elsewhere).

All the above is to give a little backdrop to the guest writer of all guest writers who will have fingers to keyboard probably by the end of the week. The dream seems to be very timely in this epoch, and is to be weighed.

The ‘2020’ see-saw

Posted on 19th May, 201919th May, 2019
by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

In 2010 I had two dreams in quick succession that have helped give me a perspective on the decade we are in that is fast coming to a close. I am not sure if this decade is from Jan 1, 2011 – Dec 31, 2020 or Jan 1, 2010 – Dec 31, 2019 so don’t want to apply the dreams strictly from this date to that date, but with only just over 6 more months until we hit the beginning of 2020 a rehearsal might be timely.

I have written about the dream where there was the raising of the institutional façades, the exposure of the inner workings, and the failure of the body of Christ to effectively engage with the shifts that could and should take place at that time. That dream indicated that the season we are in is to respond to the call to be engaged, not to revert to the familiar and by so doing simply strengthen the status quo of power and inequality.

The dream that partnered with that one was very simple but put the understanding of the former dream in a time setting. It involved me going out of a back door of a house that had a garden in it. It was a spacious garden and in it there was a see-saw central to that garden. I looked up to the sunny blue sky that had only a few small clouds in it. The number 20 and the number 10 appeared, and began to fall slowly down. The 20 dropped on the left side of the see-saw, the 10 on the right. 20 being ‘heavier’ than 10 meant that the left side of the see-saw was down to the ground. I looked up and the number 20 and the number 11 appeared. The process repeated, with 20 and 12, 20 and 13 etc. Each time a number came down the see-saw would move, there would be a jolt, but would always settle with the left side down. I watched the process unfold until the final scene was when 20 and 20 appeared. When they landed the see-saw moved from the left side down to being level. The ‘weights’ were even.

When I had the dream back in 2010 I thought the decade would unfold to the place where everything was going to be reversed, but as the years have unfolded I have realised the obvious. The dream did not end with a reversal but a level ‘playing field’.

When the field is not level obtaining a change is not easy, it is like pushing something up hill. The momentum needed to get it going, the difficulty to take a rest, the default of it rolling back down again… You get the picture.

I am not suggesting that Jan 1, 2020 everything changes, but as 2020 unfolds we should be expecting an increasing number of situations where through engagement we can see a shift. The two dreams do seem to be related as they came within a few nights of each other, and so I anticipate an increase in the next months of the exposure of what lies behind the public face of the institutions that have shaped the public space.

Greater exposure by itself will not achieve too much, but eyes to see what is being exposed and an understanding of what is being seen will be necessary. Those two aspects will need to increase to make an engagement, either directly or enabling those gifted to engage, effective. A level playing field, a balanced see-saw will make change so much easier and within reach.

These next months can be months of getting ready, being re-positioned not simply to enter a new decade but to be aligned for a the fresh opportunities and possibilities.

I have been reminding myself of this dream as it seems very timely right now… so I hope it also resonates beyond my personal setting.

Dreams can help

Posted on 25th April, 201923rd April, 2019
by Martin Scott
Posted in Reports

The above image is of the ‘Toros de Guisando’. They are ancient statues of bulls or possibly wild boars. There are a number of these in north west Spain – these ones are 70kms from Madrid and we recently paid them a visit. They are also located at a very historic site in Spain where a treaty shaped the future of the peninsula.

Gayle had two dreams about wild boars and in the first one she was being pushed around by one of them. In previous dreams concerning animals she has known that they represented something coming against her and also she has known what the strategy was to deal with those animals but this was the first with boars and in the dream she did not know how to respond. (Animals in dreams can be a challenge, for they are even that within Scripture. The serpent is on a spectrum from the devil, to a symbol of healing, wisdom right through to symbolically containing eschatological hope!) She then had a second dream concerning wild boars. The dreams were either side of a very significant women’s march in Spain, and we knew that whatever the boars represented they were at least connected with patriarchy, misogyny and the domesticating of the feminine. I was reading a book on Madrid in between the dreams and came across the many statues of bulls and/or boars that are mainly in the north of Spain. The book focused on the well known ‘Toros de Guisando’, some 70 kms to the West of Madrid. Connecting the dots we knew this was a place we had to go to and pray. They are located in the place where a Treaty was signed in 1468 that is arguably the treaty that opened the way for the unification of Spain under the ‘Catholic monarchs’, resulting in the driving out of the Muslims (1492 the last kingdom in Granada to surrender that year), the expulsion of the Jews and the sending out of Columbus (1492) to discover the new world / destroy an existing civilisation.

In these last years there has been a real battle on for the soul of Spain. At a time when there is potential for change there are two possibilities. If history is not dealt with there is a pull back and old entrenchments in the land are re-established. We have listened to language in these past months that is shocking, language literally pulling on ‘the spirit of Columbus’. A party leader recently went to these bulls of Guisando. He has taken his party much further to the right. These public figures might not know what they are pulling on but pull on it they do. Our responsibility is to be awake enough to ensure that old dangerous ‘spirits’ are not reactivated. I suspect many places are like this at this time. It indicates a time of change is here, and warns us that we could equally lose ground that has been gained thus far.

Many aspects came together in and through these recent days – we have prayed into Columbus Day and have almost certainly been on camera when we planted on the eve of that celebration some subversive art. Interestingly since the year we did that the day itself has been challenged and for the first time boycotted by certain officials. We prayed of course into the ReConquista and the subsequent events for almost a whole year.

We have had a Spanish flag for 10 years and we have known for some time that we needed to bury the flag somewhere at the right time. We have had no further discussion on this, but we both came to the conclusion that it needed to be at ‘Toros de Guisando’. Whoever said it first, the other said – that’s what I have had in my thinking for a few days… Anyway this is what we did at that place.

We first cut the flag up into 17 pieces, one for each of the governmental communidades of Spain. We did not burn the flag but symbolically cut it up, buried it soaked in oil in the ground where the treaty was made, calling for a Spain to rise up that will be a true reflection of convivencia (co-habiting of space that allows for diversity, difference, dialogue in the spirit of fraternity – which we see as the heart of Paul’s Gospel).

Part of the key response Gayle had to make in respect of the wild boars has been to hold her position and not give way to patriarchal closing down of space. This seems key at this time. There is a spirit of intimidation loosed… time to hold our ground.

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