Stick to Your Work!

Stick to Your Work

In this day and age with millions of distractions at our fingertips, we all experience an increasing need to focus on the most important details of life--or we watch our time slip away as we miss or fritter away precious opportunities. Living in regret, angers, fears, or lack of determination slows us on our Destiny Journey.

I stumbled across an anonymous quote and amended it for today:

Stick with your work. Do not flinch because the lion roars, do not stop to stone the devil's dogs, or to chase darting rabbits down their trails. Do Your Stuff! Let liars lie, let sectarians quarrel, let critics malign, let enemies accuse, let the devil do his worst--but see to it that nothing hinders you from fulfilling with joy the purpose for which you were created.

God has not asked you to be admired or esteemed. He has not requested you to defend your character, nor to contradict falsehoods about yourself that people tend to peddle, or to track down every rumor that threatens your reputation.

If you do these things, you will do nothing else; you will end up working for yourself and not for the greater Good. Keep at your life work. Focus! Let your aim be as steady as a star.

You may be assaulted, wronged, insulted, slandered, wounded, rejected, misunderstood, or assigned impure motives. You may be abused by foes, forsaken by friends, and despised by those that love you most. But see to it with steadfast determination, with unfaltering zeal, that you pursue the great mission of your life and the object of your being until at last you can say "I have completed my calling, accomplished my quest."

Real vs Counterfeit

I recently returned from a trip to Las Vegas, a city quite glitzy compared to home in West Texas, where the lights go out and the sidewalks roll up at 8 PM. Our team did one of our dream reach-outs in an 'adult entertainment' arena--we spoke to porn stars and their 'managers' about their dreams and other facets of life. More thoughts on that another time...

What struck me over and over during our trip was the continual contrast between 'real' and 'counterfeit'.

Often, the distinction wasn't immediately apparent, especially in Las Vegas. Lights were always flashy so you couldn't tell night from day. The casinos were always humming, even at early morning. Wild costumes and accentuated, super-sized body parts triggered camera-flash fireworks. Actors, stunningly beautiful wax figures, and celebrity 'look-alikes' stopped traffic, causing double-takes, provoking second glances.

The boundaries between inside and outside became blurry, as sidewalks seemed to snake in and out of hotels, casinos, and shopping malls. At one point I was tired because we were walking a lot. As we stepped outside, I looked up and saw the most beautiful, cloud-filled sky, with sunset just starting. Upon closer scrutiny, though, I realized it was a cleverly painted ceiling in a huge mall. I started asking myself, 'What day is it? What time is it, really? Is this a dream?"

The next day, we stepped outside and I saw a sunset so stunning, it took my breath away. I asked my friend Amy, "Is THAT sunset real?" I felt the blast of fresh, cold air, and I knew we were truly outside and that I was seeing the original sky.

The parts of Las Vegas that we experienced were disorienting--most of it by deliberate design. Continual sensory overload can cause a lost sense of time, focus, and one's spent money. An incessant barrage of PHONY blurs the mind so that people may more easily step outside their normal routines and 'live large' during their stay. Because the message rings everywhere, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas".

You don't have to go to Vegas to experience this phenomenon. You can park yourself in front of TV news for a couple of hours and come to believe there is nothing but violence and deceit in this world. You can spend a day in a doctor's office and conclude that everyone is sick, or you can hang out with religious legalistic people and decide that God is mean and judgmental. 

If we don't know WHO we are and what our purpose in life is, our environment can distract or derail us from daily contentment that comes from living our destiny.

Do you know your purpose in life? How do you determine truth vs cheap knockoff? What keeps you grounded? Is there anything you spend time focusing on that may not be 'real' and has potential to keep you from moving forward in a healthy way?

Periodic escape and broadening our horizons hold great value to stretch us and enrich our lives. But ultimately, no matter where we go, there we are.

So, who ARE you, really? 

Characteristics of a Trustworthy Dream Interpreter

Before we purchase a product or use someone's services, we normally check for quality assurance to avoid costly mistakes and to make sure we invest wisely. We can search Google for feedback, consult experienced friends, ask for references, or contact the Better Business Bureau. We act with deliberate faith and power when we know what we are getting ourselves into.

This principle is true if you are a dreamer searching for help in understanding your dreams. Dream interpreters are much like any spiritual advisor, counselor, or professional--they listen to you and speak their 'feedback' into your mind and spirit. In this day and age, it is wise to discern the intentions and abilities of such a person before you give them any authoritative voice in your life.

Questions to ask a prospective dream interpreter:

• Where and how were you trained? Answers vary vastly--anywhere from "I went to dream school for 10 years and have interpreted thousands of dreams under supervision," to "I took a psychology class in college," to "I read a book," to "I have interpreted two of my friends' dreams and know what I'm doing."

• What dream interpretation method do you use? There are roughly four major, most popular approaches in dream interpretation, vastly different in perspective--Freudian, Jungian, Ancient Hebraic, and Artificial Intelligence. Each is unique regarding the perceived Source of dreams. As you interview your interpreter, you will be able to quickly clue into which one he or she uses. More about these dream interpretation approaches on my website.

• What is your spiritual belief system? This question aligns closely with the methods of dream interpretation. Is the prospective interpreter more psychologically or intellectually-oriented, more attuned toward earth-based spirituality, or a follower of Jesus? Their belief system determines the source of their interpretative information.

• Are you confidential (trustworthy) and how can I know I am safe with you?When you share a dream with an interpreter, you are sharing a sacred, intimate piece of your life. You want to make sure your interpreter will listen to you and not turn around and post your dream on their website or talk to anyone about what insight they have gleaned from you.

• What kind of 'warranty work' do you offer? Does the interpreter warmly invite you to ask questions or give feedback? Do they take time to answer your emails or explain what you don't understand? And what if over time, it becomes apparent they might have been mistaken...will they be willing to process the situation with you? Are they teachable and willing to learn along with you? Beware of someone who isn't willing to answer your questions or maintain some type of accountability or honesty with you. Discern if they are truly caring...for the best about YOU.

Personally, I believe that excellent dream interpreters exhibit integrity in every area of their life. They will also interpret dream-truths with a high level of skill, experience, and encouragement, with kind, not critical words, treating the dreamer with honor--because both dreamers and interpreters enter into holy ground when delving into dreams. Good interpreters take time to hear the dream, process it, pray through it, give it their very best attention--so that the dreamer can receive the dream message to the fullest degree.

A dream rightly interpreted can radically change our life by releasing spiritual understanding of our current circumstances, answers to dilemmas we may be experiencing, and directions to step more fully into our life's destiny or calling.

Pay attention to your dreams! And choose your "Voices" wisely.

Confronting Suicidal Harassment

Confronting Suicidal Harassment

Submitted by Merry Bruton on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 12:13pm

The Holiday season typically lights up the world with pretty colors, decorations, stories and songs, coaxing everyone to jingle their happy way through giving gifts, parties, and "Ho-ho-ho's".  Most folks eagerly anticipate Christmastime as an extended season of celebration and memory-making with family and friends.  

 

But what if you are dealing with loss of relationship, painful memories, financial disaster, extreme grief, sadness, or loneliness?    The pervasive atmosphere of 'cheer' can make that hole in the heart seem even deeper, darker, and emptier.  

 

In recent days, several of my friends have been brutally honest with me regarding suicidal thoughts they are entertaining or even dreaming about on a daily basis. Life is hard, old memories haunt, loss is great, pain overwhelms, and they feel powerless to fight the rising tide of hopelessness.  

 

I have been there in years past--dreading the holidays, surviving each day on edge, feeling overwhelming discouragement, longing to wake up on January 2, to find the holiday stuff all over and done with, but thankfully, I have pressed through to experience a more joyful outlook. 

 

Survival tips abound, through counseling, talking with a friend (hopefully one that is in a positive place), or via books or articles on the web.  This isn't your typical psychological self-help blog, though those are helpful. Here are a few additional, less-commonly-voiced spiritual insights regarding the suicidal thoughts that so many people often experience:

 

• Warfare: We are at odds with a very real enemy, one who desires to cut our destiny short. The aim of his 'ministry' is to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). He can plant destructive thoughts. If we can discern how we are in the middle of a battle for our identity and worth, we can choose to align ourselves with a strong team and a Father that loves us and can help us fight. Unawareness of evil spiritual attacks leaves us vulnerable.  

• Destiny: If we are under attack, perhaps that means we are making a difference and we have a purpose and meaningful assignments to accomplish--and we are a threat to the enemy of our souls. Otherwise, why would he want to take us out?  

• Grief:  Everyone experiences difficulties, tragedies, sickness, pain, death of loved ones. No one is exempt. Know the stages of grief and realize that if you've experienced any kind loss this year, you may be in a 'normal' stage of grief...shock, disbelief, anger, depression, all of that. The most responsible thing you can do is to admit it, actively continue grieving, and know that you are not alone, and that there is nothing wrong with you if you feel these things.

• Sensitivity: If you are intuitively perceptive, you sense what pervades the spiritual atmosphere around you. Your suicidal thoughts may not even be your own, but something you are picking up from someone around you! Perhaps you are being shown what someone close to you is wrestling with--so you can give an encouraging word to help them walk through it.

• Hope:  Everyone needs Hope Alive. Find something hopeful and cling to it. Focus on whatever you can find that is positive. Tell someone what you are experiencing and ask for help. Ask what they see in you that is good, and try to affirm and celebrate--express gratitude for the Good Stuff.  

There is light at the end of the tunnel. Often things seem darkest just before the dawn of breakthrough. Creator fashioned you with purpose and a uniqueness that no one else can contribute to the universe but you.  A new year lies ahead--can't wait to see you in the light of a new year, clothed with the new strength and depth because of your perseverance and victory.  

 

Dream Interpretation Process: Interpret BEFORE You Apply the Dream

Are you a revelatory-gifted person?  If you dream a lot or have delved deeper into your intuitive or prophetic abilities (seeing, sensing, hearing, knowing information beyond the natural and tangible world), you realize that there is an art and growth process in learning what to do with what you ‘see’.

Generally speaking, the processing goes like this, in this order:  

• Revelation—the information that you receive from God (or other sources) that gives insight into a person or a situation.  It can come in the form of a vision or picture in your mind, a dream, something you hear with your ears, something you ‘know’ in your heart, a well-timed verse or song, a series of events that seem unusual—the list goes on.  

• Interpretation—deciphering what the revelation information means.  If symbols are involved, what do they signify?  How do they all fit together?  What is the message? 

• Application—taking the information and its interpretation and knowing what to do with it.  Who is it for?  You?  Someone else? What does it mean for them?  Where in their life could this make a difference?  Do you tell them?  If so, how do you give the message? What is the right timing?

You receive the revelation as a gift. Interpreting and applying both require time, study, discipline, prayer, and skill. And love and kindness!  Folks all too often take the metaphoric knowledge and run with it, skipping the effort of interpreting first—or to seeking wisdom in the application.  

Example:  You dream that your friend Anna is driving up a steep hill that is icy and slips into the next lane and gets hit head-on by an oncoming car and gets killed.  In haste and fear, you call Anna before she heads out to work, to inform her that she might get killed in a car wreck today. And she is afraid to go to work because of your dream and the way you handled it.   

But if you take time out to ponder and discern the symbols, you might instead realize that Anna (or even someone else she may represent) is on a ‘slippery slope’ at work or in one of her other activities, and needs your prayers so that she doesn’t lose control, venture off her assigned turf, and get ‘taken out’ by someone’s territorial temper.   

And, if you are to speak to her about it at all, you can find a way to warn her with encouragement instead of a tone of fear or threat. If you don’t understand the dream or the purpose of it, you risk blurting out nonsense that only confuses instead of bringing clarity.   

It is natural to want to skip the interpretation process and apply dreams literally--this is why it is more difficult to interpret our own dreams (or for folks close to us)—we know more life-circumstance-stuff and we immediately go to figuring out what revelation means, based on what is happening with us, instead of what Spirit is showing us.  

But taking time to interpret first, before applying is a MUST. Hearing Spirit about what the revelation means and why it is given is the plumb line of the process--the key ingredient to using our prophetic gift effectively. Thus, the Giver of the revelation becomes the focal point of our understanding, instead of allowing our circumstances to skew the meaning of the revelation. What is God's heart about the matter? 

So, if I dreamed that my 50-year-old friend gets pregnant and has a baby, should I hurry up and call her to tell her to start registering for baby clothes….??

Spiritual Autoresponders

Once in a while we get a chance to escape our daily routine and take a vacation. If we plan to truly unplug, in order to be responsible, we program our email or voicemail with an autoresponder. So, when people attempt to contact us, they receive an immediate response telling them we do not plan to respond to their communication—anytime soon.

 

Or when someone signs up on a new website, they receive an automatic ‘welcome’ message with instructions or sales pitch—to convey that ‘personal touch’. 

 

When you receive an automated response, don’t you feel special?

 

Once, I tried to leave an encouraging comment on a friend's blog.  It failed.  I got an automatic email that called me a 'spambot' and said my comment was 'illegal'. So much for good intentions.

 

We live in a time of computerized voicemail systems, programmed customer service mazes, self-help online troubleshooting—all designed to herd us toward a solution with as little personal connection as possible.  I’m not bashing this wonderful technology…even though it can be infuriating at times, like when my needs don’t fit the pre-determined scripts. I admit I usually feel relief when a real voice of a real person answers and offers help.

 

Taking the idea of autoresponders to a more personal or spiritual level, I think we would benefit by an occasional ‘system wipe and restore” to re-examine how we interact with folks: 

 

o     If we want someone to help us, can we do a better job in honoring them, treating them as though their time is valuable, and asking for assistance nicely and humbly . . . instead of assuming they are like a vending machine where you push a button and expect immediate ‘output’? 

 

o     Can we learn to listen fully first to someone’s situation, to hear their heart, before we launch into ‘fix-it-advice’ mode? 

 

o     Do we allow ourselves to get in a rut in our relationships, where we may get lazy and fail to laugh, get creative, affirm, encourage, or say, 'thank you'?  When is the last time you responded differently to a friend and surprised their socks off?

 

o     When ugly, unwarranted, vicious words attack, are we skilled and alert enough to put up our ‘shields’ and let those curses deflect back to the attacker without allowing our peace to get even slightly disrupted--sort of like an auto-responding anti-magnetic force field?

 

o     When we ask for God’s help, are we willing to take time and effort to process—and wait—to see the bigger picture and to work on a deeper relationship as we go?  God is not a vending machine, either, and I don’t think he feels the pressure to always produce solutions for us--right NOW.

 

Thank you for reading today’s Destiny Dreamz blog.  For more information regarding dream interpretation or other spiritual topics, please go to www.DestinyDreamz.com or contact usfor further questions, but you may have to wait 5 – 7 business days for us to get back to you.

 

Pioneer Power

Pioneer Power

A funny thing often happens on the way to follow your life’s calling. You discover what you love to do, what you are gifted at, and once you fully commit to ‘go for it’--you invest heavily of all of your resources to get educated and forge forward. The way is difficult, but glorious--as the horizon comes into view! You turn to celebrate with your friends, only to find that no one has followed you.

Such seems to be the experience of the pioneer. Uncharted wilderness beckons you to venture out, traveling light, plowing and breaking rocky ground—with your FACE. You question and analyze your mission, your approach, even your own sanity, because nothing seems to go smoothly. No one can define success or failure, because the guidebook hasn’t been written yet. You get to brave all sorts of dangers, pitfalls, unknown elements, and dark places, because most folks are too fearful or uninterested to accompany you.

It takes supernatural strength to conquer new territory AND endure the disparaging attacks of the ‘normal’ status quo opinions ‘back home’.

People describe you as ‘weird’ or ‘misguided’ because they do not understand the pull on your spirit, the dreams that compel you, the Voice that no one else hears that encourages, “You can do this—you’re making an eternal difference for multitudes by your willingness and faith to stand alone as a trailblazer.” In the process, you come to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is God that leads and empowers you in the challenge.

Because of Destiny’s Direction, you go where no man has gone before, wielding revolutionary approaches, hoping to show others that ‘it’ can be done, even if you are not quite sure yourself how it will eventually work out. After you do the groundbreaking, you can summon the others to tell them what lies ahead—to assure them that the way is ‘viable’.

Keep up the good work! Your loving labor and extravagant cost is not wasted. If you’ve been called, you will also be equipped.

It takes time for anything innovative to get established and become standardized. Followers will catch on, and then go faster and farther than you, but only because you’ve prepared the way and paved the road for them to travel on.

In good character, you can delight in their progress and cheer them on as they push past you to re-work and rebuild your efforts into something even better.

But you may not ever realize the full results—because you’re a pioneer at heart, and you are probably already dreaming about...your NEXT assignment.

"Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking  Instead, fix your attention on God.  You'll be changed from the inside out."  Romans 12:2