Dream: Obese American with Family on the Marsh – Lloyd Acree

I saw a man and his family living in a mid- to low-income home somewhere close to a swamp or marsh or bayou, so evidently it was in the deep south of the US. At first I noticed that there were two boys in a bedroom and I was babysitting them because the parents were nowhere around. One of the boys was a difficult child, about age 9, who had such a bad attitude problem that I was trying everything to fix it. For whatever reason pertaining to the dream, I slapped this boy in the face several times. So eventually he just slowed down and went into total silence, but there still seem to be his attitude problem that I couldn’t get rid of.

Immediately next I see the family together standing outside with their backs to the marsh or open waters. Then either my voice or a voice nearby spoke to the man. Now this man had a very unique appearance: he was obese as in around 350 lbs, very wide at the belt like as in globe shaped, and he had coarse blond hair flowing as a huge beard that also had reddish coloring, but all natural. His wavy beard was the biggest I’ve ever seen; it was covering his entire belly all the way past his waistline and spread out like an apron. I even saw the ends dipping into dirt or whatever was going to be some kind of concern. As they stood there as a family and began to leave towards the marsh I heard the voice say “Go and have children.” And they turned to leave.

Immediately next I found myself at a new location which was an outdoor pool full of people and they were playing polo or football in the water. They threw the ball accidentally at my feet so I threw it back. I continued to walk in an orbital path around the pool and was not part of the community party. End.

Interpretation

This is entirely a message specifically for Americans. It’s clear to me that the emphasis of the dream is on the man, his strength and abilities, and what he ought to do. The voice that spoke to him whether it was mine or not represents the authority as of God Himself, who should be first to give every household their instructions for life. The man is the first member of the family such as with Adam and so God is speaking to him first. God here encourages him to not lose his hope and confidence: that he should continue as prior generations to look forward with assurance that he can still raise a family and live a rewarding, normal life.

• The man appears to need help with parenting. Since I don’t have any experience parenting let alone slapping a child, this part must refer to an issue common to the deep south; it serves to represent two problems at once: neglect (the father was not doing the slapping) and physical abuse. So it becomes evident that we are called to pray now for a parenting revival and cultural reform in American families, particularly for those of the deep south.

• The father’s beard was cartoonishly enormous so this shows that perhaps he is too assertive and too stubborn to adjust, even for spiritual revivals, so he will need to be immersed in love and prayer. Obesity in the dream was unique to him alone so I believe that this is a call for fathers: not to just watch their physical diet, but to be aware that spiritual obesity makes men useless in the kingdom of God. In other words American fathers in particular need to start making sacrifices, flexing their prayer muscles, and devoting their time to consuming the word of God.

• The community pool game shows me that God has a blessing in store for American neighborhoods and families in general; we should have a season or years rather of a return to peaceful and freedom-loving community experiences, especially for the youth.

The overall sense of this dream is that we have never lost the basic callings and promises of God toward having families and long, peaceful lives. I want to add that we have seen what is perhaps and unprecedented level of reforms and alarmist theories all over America and even throughout the whole world as to correcting anything and everything pertaining to the church. Yet this dream may serve as a reminder that even with all the mistakes or errors or false opinions in the church, and even though we see apocalyptic scenes and much discussion and warnings about the end times, ultimately the rhythm of gathering the saints once a week for scriptural teaching and preaching and worship, and carrying on as in generations before, has not come to an end! This also comes as in a hearkening back to Genesis 1:

“And God made man, according to the image of God he made him, male and female he made them. And God blessed them, saying, Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the seas and flying creatures of heaven, and all the cattle and all the earth, and all the reptiles that creep on the earth.” And God said, “Behold I have given to you every seed-bearing herb sowing seed which is upon all the earth, and every tree which has in itself the fruit of seed that is sown, to you it shall be for food. And to all the wild beasts of the earth, and to all the flying creatures of heaven, and to every reptile creeping on the earth, which has in itself the breath of life, even every green plant for food;” and it was so. And God saw all the things that he had made, and, behold, they were very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

Also it would be a good idea to be ready for some pool parties.

Lloyd Acree