The darkness of night

When night falls and I close my eyes, I become captive to the plot of my dreams.  However, I've come to think that I'm not always the author of each story.    We feel emotions in dreams - waking up in tears or in a burst of laughter often tears me from my altered "reality."  Though a dream may end when my alarm goes off, the joy, excitement, guilt, anger, or whatever it may be often lingers.  I believe Satan uses our dreams to cause this lingering effect in our lives and relationships.  In the nearly seven months of my marriage, Ben and I have more than once woken up with resentment toward each other, which often doesn't settle until after we leave for work. 

Last night was similar.  We were both startled awake in the early morning by bad dreams.  Neither of our dreams had to do with one another directly, but they definitely affected how we felt when we woke up.  My dream dealt with my past sins, as they sometimes do.  In my dream, I was at my grandma's house.  My grandma passed away nearly six and a half years ago, yet I still miss her with stronger gusts of emotion than I do anyone else.  The thought of her home brings to me a deep sadness and longing for the past.  In my dream, I did something which added to these feelings a boiling up of the deep guilt I have felt for my past sins, as if I had just added to this debt again.  I woke up feeling heavily burdened and shamed for sins I have not recently commited and have already been forgiven for.  I am free from my sin, yet Satan has a way of braiding guilt into our emotions so the feeling of our transgressions lingers beyond its place. 

When I woke up, I didn't plan on telling Ben about my dream.  Though it consumed me, I didn't want to hurt Ben by what had happened in it and I felt so guilty!  I also thought that it was just a dream, and I didn't need to tell him because it wasn't real.  It was just a dream - that's the truth.  By no means would I ever do what happened in my dream...by no means would it be a desire in real life.  Still, Satan's goal is to isolate us, or to make us feel isolated, and by not sharing my dream with Ben would be giving Satan that power.

Ben ended up sharing his dream with me first.  As he was talking, the realization that these coinciding nightmares may have been an attack from Satan came to mind.  I knew that I had to tell Ben at that point, and that it would be good for us rather than damaging.  We both realized that Satan had been sharpening his sword while we were sleeping, and we immediately prayed for each other and for the rest of our day. 

If we had not talked about our dreams, we would have stumbled through our day focusing on our own negativity rather than glorifying God.  Satan uses any media possible to manipulate who we are as children of God.  It is his goal to remove our focus from the glory of our creator.  Who would have guessed that our dreams would be such a strong conductor from the electric current of his spark?  But through Christ we have the power to start a fire under his plan.  God gives us the power to expose the darkness of our dreams with His light, and triumphantly we are able to move on.

I wanted to share this because I'm sure we aren't the only ones this happens to.  It was a "tada" moment when I realized that maybe spiritual warfare flows over into our slumber.  Now we can move forward, awake to Satan's efforts to ruin us in our sleep.