Speak Lord, Your Servant Is Listening

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

I can't remember the last time I unintentionally over slept. I am usually up by 5:30 or 6:00 and have time to slowly wake up while talking to the Lord. Then I have time to write a devotional post. Today has not been like that I surfaced from the land of vivid dreams at 8am which means there is only a half hour to get kids moving and out the door in time for school. Its about the same time that I always wake them up so their morning was about the same. Mine is off to a weird start. I have about 45minutes from dropping kids off till I need to be working in the church office.

I am pretty sure the Lord is trying to get my attention about something because there were some types of people and places that are repeated from other dreams. So I am trying to put the puzzel peaces together to figure out what the Lord wants me to see. So my mind is crunching those puzzels in the background while I am hopefully writing something that will encourage and help you today.

I guess it might help to share how I deal with types and places in dreams. The place to start is to pray ask the Lord to help you to understand. Samuel in the Old Testament goes to the priest Eli several times thinking Eli has called him. Finally Eli instructs him to say next time he hears the voice calling him, to say "Speak Lord, your servant is listening." I know that when I have very vivid dreams that often the Lord is trying to help me see something. So "Speak Lord, your servant is listening" is a good place to start. That story about Samuel is in 1st Samuel 3.

Who were the people that populated the dream? Did anyone stand out, was anyone someone I actually know?  People generally represent a kind of person not the actual person in my dreams. So I look at what that person might represent to me. Sometimes the person is actually acting as a mirror of yourself because it is easier to see things in other people than it is in ourself. So I might look at what I like or respect about that particular person or what I might see as a character flaw. How am I relating to that person might show some area of need in me that is not being met. Did that person in the dream make me feel at peace or was I anxious. I ask those kinds of questions.

Where does the dream take place? What might that place represent or mean to you. My dream took place in the church. So is God speaking to me personally or to me about my church. In my dream I worked at the church and we had lots of visitors and I was supposed to be showing them the offices but I found myself showing them a very hidden secret place in the basement. I was showing them a hidden place in the basement of the church, in that place were antiques that belonged to someone from the past and I was showing people the cool old stuff I had found there. I do find history fascinating. I had been in that place before in other dreams but I had not ever shown it to more than a few very trusted friends. So more than likely this dream the Lord is talking to me about yet another of my secret places. Its not surprising that it is hidden in the church because for the last 30 years my life has taken place in and around church. So now I need to puzzel out what exactly is the Lord trying to tell me. There are treasures that I have found and kept hidden away. Perhaps I am to share them with more people. We are not the first generation of believers and there have been some really interesting people who have waked with Jesus.  Maybe I am to share some of those treasures that I have discovered.

So I will keep running this through my thoughts as I go about my day. Sometimes the Lord will use someone during my day to jar or trigger some memory that will shed light on the puzzel that is before me. The thing that I can tell you is that for me, the Lord will often make me work something out to find the answer. It then becomes my own revelation or discovery. In coaching we ask people questions rather than tell them what they should do. The reason being is because the mind has it's own kind of immune system. A foreign idea will be quickly dismissed often even if it is a good one. If the person can through questions come to their own idea and conclusion they will be much more likely to put it into practice and carry it out in their life. So I think the Lord often works with me in the same way.

Well I have run out of time for this post - I hope it has been helpful.

Prayer:
Lord you search us and you know us inside out better than we know ourselves. Speak to us and help us to see things in our own life that need to change. Help us to puzzel things out so that the revelations you are showing us become our own.