DREAM CATCHERS
By Pastor Jim May
Among the Chippewa and other American Indian tribes there is a legend that goes something like this:
A spider was quietly spinning his web in his own space. It was beside the sleeping space of Nokomis, the grandmother.
Each day, Nokomis watched the spider at work, quietly spinning away. One day as she was watching him, her grandson came in, saw the spider, picked up the shoe and attacked the spider with the intent of killing it.
”No, my son”, whispered Nokomis, "don’t hurt him."
"But grandmother, why do you protect the spider?" asked the little boy. The older lady smiled, but did not answer.
When the boy left, the spider went to the old woman and thanked her for saving his life. He said to her, "For many days you have watched me spin and weave my web. You have admired my work. In return for saving my life, I will give you a gift."
He smiled and moved away, spinning as he went. Soon the moon glistened on a magical silvery web moving gently in the window. "See how I spin?" he said. "See and learn, for each web will snare bad dreams. Only good dreams will go through the small hole. This is my gift to you. Use it so that only good dreams will be remembered. The bad dreams will become hopelessly entangled in the web and forgotten, never to come to pass."
This is just one of the legends that fostered the use of the “Dream Catcher” among all of the Indians tribes. Each nation, or tribe, has it’s own version of the legend, but the purpose is always the same, to guard against bad dreams and let the good dreams come through.
I’m sure that most of you have seen them, at least in pictures. This is just one more example of superstition and foolishness that people will so easily accept.
I’m not here to promote such foolishness as the Indian Dream Catcher. We don’t believe in such superstitions. But I am here to tell you that God loves a “Dream Catcher” who will catch the vision and believe in the dream that He births within us. He loves for us to catch hold of a dream and run with it, allowing it to enter into our spirit and our heart and set us on fire to work for him.
God uses dreams and visions to inspire His people to do a work for him. The Bible promotes the idea that there would dreamers in these last days that would accomplish a great work for the Lord. Peter, in his great, anointed message on the Day of Pentecost, referred to this same thing in Acts 2:17. Quoting Joel 2:28, he said, "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams…"
I would love to see some more dreamers in this church. I’d love to see some of our sons and daughters “prophesying, or teaching their friends and family about Jesus, and even giving forth some prophetic utterances under the anointing of the Holy Ghost.
Wouldn’t it be great for some of our young men to catch a vision for a work for the Lord! There is no limit to what God can do with a man who has a vision!
One man who was a dreamer was Joseph and look where it took him. His dream took him from being a slave in Egypt to the second in command of Pharaoh’s kingdom.
But everyone didn’t like Joseph’s dream and you can be assured that a lot of people, even Christians, won’t like your dreams either because it will make them face up to the fact that their faith is dead and they don’t have a vision for Jesus.
Genesis 37:5, “And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.”
Now all of us dream a little, but for most of us that dream is little more than a “day dream” or a fantasy that we don’t believe could ever come true. We are so conditioned to believe that it’s only a few that really “make it”. Have you ever thought that the reason only a few really “make it” is that it’s only those few who are willing to pay the price to make their dreams come true? Everyone else just gives up too quickly!
Do you believe that Mr. Sam Walton was a “Dream Catcher”? He began as a sales clerk at a Ben Franklin store. But Sam had a dream – a big dream. He approached his boss with his dream and was promptly told to quit dreaming and get back to work. The owners of the Ben Franklin stores thought that they knew how to make the retail discount business work and they weren’t about to listen to this dreamer named Walton. But who won in the end? Most of you don’t even remember the Ben Franklin Stores but everybody knows about Walmart, because Sam wouldn’t give up on his dream to be the best discount store in the world.
There was another man who was a dreamer as well. You have probably heard of his story but let me tell it again to remind you.
When this boy was six years old his father died. His mother was forced to go to work, and at six years old he had to take care of his three-year-old brother and a baby sister. This meant cooking meals too. By the age of seven, he was a master of several regional dishes.
At age 10, he got his first job working on a nearby farm for $2 a month. When he was 12, his mother remarried and he left his home for a job on a farm in Greenwood, Indiana. He held a series of jobs over the next few years, first as a 15-year-old streetcar conductor in New Albany, and then as a 16-year-old private in the army who served in Cuba before the days of Castro and communism.
After that he was a railroad fireman, studied law by correspondence, practiced in justice of the peace courts, sold insurance, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry, sold tires, and operated service stations. When he was 40, he began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station, serving meals to folks on his own dining table in the living quarters of his service station.
At age 65, a new interstate highway was planned and it would mean the end of his service station business so he sold off his property and had to survive on $105/ month Social Security checks.
But his dream wasn’t dead, just delayed. He went to work, doing everything he could to make his dream come true. He traveled nearly 250,000 miles a year, stopping at every restaurant he came to and cooked a special meal for free for the owners of those restaurants. He was thrown out of many and accepted by others. When they accepted his plan, he was to be paid only 5 cents for every time they used his recipe and sold a meal.
That sound crazy doesn’t it? Most people now would say that his plan would never work and that his dream was only a fantasy that would never come true – but how many of you have ever heard of a man who was a “Dream Catcher” named Colonel Harland Sanders and his Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants?
His dream came true because he wouldn’t let it pass. He worked hard and never gave up hope and it came to pass. It wasn’t luck! It wasn’t just coincidence! It was plain hard work and perseverance!
God is looking for a few good “Dream Catchers” like that for His kingdom! Are you one of them? Has God called you for a work? Is he birthing a dream in you right now?
Can God use you like he did Joseph, the Dreamer? Can God use you to deliver your family, to see them set free, and to help them see greater things ahead?
God loves to give his people dreams and he wants us to “catch” those dreams and fight for them.
Paul had a dream and that dream spurred the ministry to the Gentiles nations under the leading of the Holy Ghost in his life.
Acts 16:9-15, "And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavoured to go into Macedonia, assuredly gathering that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them. Therefore loosing from Troas, we came with a straight course to Samothracia, and the next day to Neapolis; And from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony: and we were in that city abiding certain days. And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither. And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. And when she was baptized, and her household, she besought us, saying, If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there. And she constrained us."
Even though Paul’s dream was given by the Lord and Paul was walking in the perfect will of God, his dream wasn’t going to come to pass without a lot of opposition from the devil, so don’t think that the work that God has called you to do will be easy. There will be lot of times when it’s easier to quit than to go on. There will be a lot of times when you just want to throw up your hands and quit – But you can’t.
Romans 11:29 says, "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance."
If you try to give up and walk away, that unfulfilled dream will stalk you; it will haunt you; and the Holy Ghost will never let you forget that you have a call of God on your life. Nothing else will satisfy that dream. Nothing else can take its place. No matter where you go or what you do, that dream will nag you day and night, until you get back to work where God wants you.
Paul had a dream to evangelize Macedonia and his dream started out so great with converts and churches being established and miracles taking place, but the devil was mad and he wasn’t going to sit idly by and let Paul’s dream come true easily.
Let me tell you that if you can accomplish what you think that God has called you to do without having to learn, to stretch, to grow and to be very uncomfortable in what you have to do, then your dream just isn’t big enough. You have to “catch a dream” that is bigger than you are right now! It has to be a dream that seems almost impossible to obtain? Why? Because God wants you to do great things for Him and not settle for a place among the mediocre! We sell ourselves short all the time, giving up just before the victory really comes and God begins to move mountains to see our dreams come to pass.
Paul was traveling with Silas in this journey to Macedonia and both of them wound up chained between guards in the depths of the prison before it was over. If wonder if they thought for a moment whether the dream was really worth the price they were paying? I wonder if they might have thought for even a moment that they had missed the will of God and overstepped their bounds? I wonder if they were ready to throw in the towel and head for home and forget the dream of a Macedonian church for the Lord?
Can you hear Paul crying out in the night to God saying, you gave me this dream – you sent me to this place – and look where I am now? What happened, why doesn’t my dream come true?
Well, if Paul and Silas thought about that, it certainly was only for a moment because the next thing we read in this story is found in Acts 16:25-31, "And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."
I wonder how many times Joseph thought that way?
At first it was the wonderful dream of everyone falling down and worshipping him; serving him like a king!
Joseph’s thoughts were probably, “Wow, I like that dream! I can’t wait to see that come true. Come on God, get with it and make it happen!”
Then a short time later he is thrown into the pit by his own brothers who hated his dream because it put them into a bad light!
What were Joseph’s thoughts now? “Oh No! I missed God. The dream can’t come true now. Why did I ever believe I could do something that great, or be someone that good?”
Then they threw him a rope to bring him up out of the pit!
Joseph said to himself, “Oh, now I get it! This was a test of my faith! God was really seeing if I believed in the dream! I knew it – I knew this was a test! I knew the dream would come true.”
And then he found out that he was being sold into slavery and here he goes again. “I knew it, I knew it wouldn’t happen! It was all just a false hope, a fantasy, and God is trying to tell me to stop dreaming and get on with reality.”
Then later he is made the chief steward of Potiphar’s house and again we can imagine what Joseph might have thought. “I knew it! I mean I said I knew that the dream could come to pass when I had it the first time. And I messed up, but I knew it could still happen when I was pulled out of the pit. And now I’m sure that it could happen because I’m in charge of my master’s household now and I’m really on my way – AND THEN HE IS ACCUSED OF MAKING A PASS AT POTIPHAR’S WIFE AND THROWN INTO PRISON FOR A FEW YEARS AND HERE WE GO AGAIN!
Has that been the way your dream has gone too? Did you catch a dream from the Lord and begin to walk in belief only to be shot down by negative and adverse circumstances in your life? Welcome to the club called “Reality”! No one with a dream has ever seen that dream come true without the “ups and downs” of life, so prepare for them now!
God has birthed a dream in us to build a work for him here at Victory Temple! He has given us a vision and a dream that is bigger than us – we can’t do it within ourselves.
I know that the Holy Ghost will build the church. I know that it’s not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord – but let’s not use that verse as a cop-out! God birthed a dream in us to do a good work for him and the scripture says it this way in Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:"
God has birthed a dream in me – He has birthed a dream in you – He has birthed a dream in us and caused us to be a “Dream Catcher” and see the vision of where He wants us to go. I know that the dream will grow as we grow in the Lord. The Vision is going to be larger and better as the church grows, but God will give us the means to accomplish the work that He has called us to do for His kingdom.
Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season, in God’s time, and in God’s way, we will reap the reward of seeing our dreams come true, if we faint not!
