It's come to my attention that battle comes before victory. The outpouring of the Spirit in our area will come after a season of battle. What does the battle look like? What I'm beginning to see surprises me. I've been looking over my dream journal and noticed some changes in the things I dream about.

Jesus often spoke in parables - if you read about why he did that, it was because God wanted to do two things; He wanted to reveal the secrets of His kingdom, but He wanted them to be revealed only to those whose hearts would receive and believe them. The ones who wanted to know what God was saying had to unravel the mysteries in the parables and they came up with some radical things.

Those who didn't care about the kingdom of heaven, would hear his teaching (and be held accountable for it) but go on about their lives, as if it didn't matter.

Dreams are a lot like parables. To most people they're just a bunch of odd things we don't understand. It's hard for most people to accurately interpret dreams, because they don't understand the language of them. But to those who are interested in the secrets of heaven, dreams are like little treasure chests waiting to be opened.

Around Christmas, I began having dreams about warfare and weapons. I never had much of that before. Most of my dreams are about praying for people to be healed or things like that.

The dreams about weapons were training dreams. In one, I was learning about new weapons technology in archery and in another dream I with a team of people being trained for a military assignment. In another dream I traded in a bunch of junk for a high-tech handgun with a laser sight. I couldn't understand how the sight worked, how the gun loaded or fired, but when I pointed it across the street it fired off 2 rounds.

Looking further back in my dream journal to November, I saw the phrase "learning about..." coming up over and over.

In one dream I was 'learning about' playing guitar. In another dream I was 'learning about' singing. I was with a group of people taking voice lessons from a professional voice coach. And in a third dream I was taking dancing lessons with a group of people from a professional dance instructor.

Dreams are like a river. There is a flow and a direction to them and if you follow them, they take you to a destination. When I put all these dreams together, what God is telling me is:

1) I just entered a new season in my life.

2) The subject of my attention should be on weapons & warfare during this time.

3) I have little understanding of the warfare and weapons, so equipping and training are the first steps.

4) I know most dreams are symbolic or like parables, so the warfare isn't literally against people. We are called to be at peace with all men.

5) Jesus and the apostles had much to say about a kingdom of darkness and a kingdom of light. They insisted there is a spiritual battle going on, even though it's invisible to most people. Therefore I must conclude that I'm not being asked to do literal warfare against people, but spiritual warfare against the forces of the enemy. There are no other options.

4) The weapons I'm being trained to use are primarily dance, musical instruments, and singing. (I kinda like that)

If you look through the Old Testament you find the tribes of Israel doing things like singing and dancing in preparation for war. Sometimes that was all they actually did, and God gave them victory immediately afterward. He seems to be bringing back a play from a really old playbook.

Last thought - in light of other dreams and messages I've had, I also know God is going to bring a great spiritual awakening to Olympia. My guess is that will involve some serious warfare to destroy enemy strongholds and dethrone principalities first. That warfare might get loud with all the people singing, dancing and playing their weapons at full blast.

Weapons of a Different Kind