My time in the D.R. was an exercise of faith & obedience. As I was sharing my testimony, which is a painful one to recall, the Holy Spirit used it to bring people to the awareness of sin in their own lives. I’m sad that people were in sin but glad that the people confessing this sin are now on a road to freedom. It is a hard road, but one that we each must go on if we truly want to be used by God and to be a vessel for him. Here’s an example of being used by God.
I had a dream about me standing in front of police officers asking them for keys. It felt like I dreamed it all night, but when I awakened, I had forgotten the dream. So, I went about my day as planned.
As a teaching object lesson, I wanted to give keys to the students as a reminder of what we’d been discussing all week. I’d been speaking on the fact that we hold the keys to the box that we hold God in, the keys to the box that we hold ourselves in and that there are keys to hearing the voice of God. So, it was a natural thought process for me to go and find a locksmith and buy keys.
As we rode into town, headed for the locksmith, I started faintly remembering my dream from the night before. As strange as it seemed, I told my driver that I felt that we were to go to the police station and ask for keys. She had an odd look on her face, but she said, “OK.”
We approached the officers who where handling a criminal with some force. A small wrestling match as it were. We were very aware that they all had guns and you never know what can happen when guns are present? So, we backed up. After seeing this, I KNEW I was in the right place and that the enemy was trying to scare me into leaving. Once the situation was under control, we approached a woman officer and explained my dream. She looked at my translator and then me, as if we were crazy.
I boldly stood there and said, “I know that this sounds strange, but I’m just trying to be obedient to what I feel that God told me to do in my dream.”
She continued to tell us that they did NOT have any keys for us. But I still stood there and asked, “Is your boss available or anyone who is in control of all the keys?” She said, “Yes,” then walked away for a bit and soon came a small statured man. We explained again the dream and he also said, “We have no keys.” I felt so strongly that they DID in fact have keys for me and I began explaining different types of keys that they may have. Old, rusty, don’t work anymore for anything, ones which were confiscated by seized vehicles etc…. He called over a subordinate and mumbled a few things.
And we continued to ask him about his life, his relationship with God, and his job. After explaining to him the plans that God has for him to prosper him and to give him hope for the future, he responded, that he didn’t have time to go to church. I said with the help of my amazing translator, that God was not interested in him attending a church as much as he wants to speak to him. He was curious and continued listening. I told him that God wanted to answer the questions that he’d been wondering the answers to for many years. He explained that he drove miles to get to work and miles to get home and then worked all night and was too tired to go to church.
I expressed that the long drive would be a perfect time to ask God the questions he’d always wanted the answers to, and that God was waiting for him to ask. That the drive would become his “Church.”
When I said that God wanted to reveal himself to him. He just smiled. Just then, the subordinate officer arrived both palms open filled with old, rusty, unusable keys, ones which had been confiscated from seized vehicles.
Not only did my translator about fall over, the first woman officer had her jaw on the floor. I quickly thanked them for their time, took the keys and walked away.
Even if you think what you are doing may sound a bit crazy, it is well worth it to live an exciting adventure with God. We stopped a few more places as we were led by the Holy Spirit, and in all 44 rusty keys were gathered for the glory of God.