Another thing: I'm not much of a believer in "dreams and visions" the way some people on Christian television seem to be. But I do believe in the reality of angels and demons, and the absolute supremacy of Jesus over all things.
So I'm telling my dream for two reasons. First, I'm convinced it's real--that God showed me something about my early life, just a glimpse. And second, it reveals once again why I admire Christ.
In my dream I saw myself when I was a small boy. My parents and I were back on the farm in Western Colorado. I saw the top floor of our old farm house. It was nighttime, and we had gone to bed. It was a small upstairs, almost a loft, two bedrooms connected by a narrow hall with no door separating them.
My parents slept in the first room, at the top of steep, narrow wooden stairs. My bedroom was at the other end. I still remember as a little boy taking a nap with the window open and a summer breeze carrying the perfume of the huge lilac that grew in purple splendor below.
But in my dream it was dark, late at night. I could see the sleeping forms of my parents in one room and my own small shape in the other.
Suddenly a black form flitted across the room. Like an oily stain, the shadow slid rather than floated. I knew it was a malevolent spirit, a spirit of death, and it moved between the rooms, from mine toward my parents’, as large as a vulture, or a huge bat. As the creature approached, my dad and mom began to breath erratically, almost to choke.
Then I looked again.
Near my parents’ bed I saw the glowing shape of a shining, beautiful Person. He stood strong, protectively, assuredly, clearly in control of the room and everything in it.
The black shadow began to move erratically, like a moth after you take a swat at it, and it seemed much smaller somehow, maybe the size of a small, ugly bird.
I looked once more.
The black spirit was now the size of a fly. It seemed irritating instead of menacing. As it buzzed about the room, the Beautiful One shot out His hand and snatched it out of the air, effortlessly capturing it in His fist.
