The Hotel Guest Dream
July 3, 2024 11:55 AM
Solitary Man
solitaryman.substack.com/
20240702
Last night I dreamt that my wife and I lived in my old small town where I grew up, but had travelled to the nearby city and rented an apartment-like hotel room for a couple nights to attend a wedding. When it was time to check out, we were late getting up. Some other people came over and were trying to offer us drinks, hindering and distracting us.
Somehow in the confusion my wife and I decided to head back home without packing and checking out. As we were driving, she wanted to stop at some place that was like a county fair. As she was browsing the tables set up with various goods for sale, it struck me that we were now past the checkout time, and that there was no reason why we should keep our rented room for another night. I wanted to hurry back and try and pack and see if we could get out of having to pay for another night.
Yet every time I tried to hurry my wife along and urge her that we must leave, she kept ignoring me, and kept browsing the tables of merchandise. I was getting angry, shouting and making a scene, even physically grabbing her at one point. Yet she somehow managed to elude me and before I knew it, she had completely vanished, and I could not find here anywhere.
The sense I had during every phase of this dream was one of agitation, stress, pressure. I kept trying to rush to get certain tasks done, and not succeeding. People and events kept distracting me, making me temporarily forget what I should of prioritized. The wedding was over. I should of checked out of my hotel room in plenty of time.
Instead I slept in. I allowed some strange adults to come into my room, trying to offer me whisky, talking and generally distracting me, making me forget about checking out until I noticed the time that it was already too late.
Rather than redouble my efforts to get out, I found myself riding back home with my wife, having totally forgotten that I still had not checked out. She saw the farmers market type of affair going on at a certain turn off in the road, so we decided to leisurely detour and check it out. As soon as I got there, it suddenly occurred to me that I had made a stupid mistake by not checking out, as we’d now have to retrace our steps, and waste our money on another night. In my panic and shame, I thought that if we just hurry back and get back there soon enough, perhaps we could still not have to pay the full price of another night’s rental, maybe only pay a partial penalty and thus, salvage something from our foolish mistake.
However, I could not get my wife to go along with my panicked, angry plea. She seemed oblivious to my request, as if she had seen me act this way before, making a scene, and trying to keep her from spending any money.
The harder I tried in my flesh to convince her, the more elusive she was to find amongst all the tables of merchandise, until I couldn’t find her at all.
Now I want it on the record that this dream has nothing to do with my wife’s actual behavior in real life. Everything God shows me has a symbolic value, using actual people and places that I can relate to, that demonstrate deeper spiritual truths. Hyper literalism in interpretation can be just as much an error as hyper allegorism.
Having said that, often the most prominent aspect of my dreams from the Lord is what I am feeling at the time. In this one it was the sense that the party was over, and I had overslept and now was desperately trying to do what I was supposed to do (ie, check out of the hotel at the proper time). If I hadn’t overslept, I would of been thinking clearly, and would of had plenty of time to perform my assigned task.
Instead, since I slept in, I woke up and my mind was disoriented and occupied. Then satan sent strange men with offers of further distraction, that kept my mind from focusing on the obvious. Then in order to get away from them, we jumped in our car to go home, and the thought that I had not done what I was supposed to do (ie, check out), never even crossed my mind.
Then this county fair grabbed the attention of my wife, and I readily agreed to stop there. Only when she was out browsing and I was getting bored and impatient did I realize the folly of my actions.
So what did I decide to do? Did I repent, accept the consequences of having to pay unnecessarily for another night’s rent, and own up to my mistake? No, I decided to act in the flesh and try to achieve and calculate and fix things by my own understanding. I reasoned that if we hurried back now, since we’re only a few hours past checkout, maybe I could talk the manager into not having to pay for another night, or maybe only have to make a partial payment as a penalty.
Then I tried to force my wife to stop what she was doing, in order to make my scheme work. When she resisted, I kept acting more and more in the flesh, reverting to anger, shouting, and making a scene. The result was that I kept getting further and further away from my goal, until it became impossible for me to fulfill my task.
I think the lesson here is obvious. The party is definitely over in our lands, and in the church. We as the church, and as a nation, have overslept. When we woke up, we realized that the hour is late, but immediately forgot the peril we’re in by strange, overbearing men, offering us temptations and distractions. This can represent those who have compromised us by the promise of bribes, or the keeping of your careers if you did what they asked, etc. Or perhaps we chose to listen to the temptations of the world, and chose to forget what we’re supposed to be doing because of a lifestyle of undisciplined hearts.
Then when the pressure got too insistent, we jump in our cars and escape, still forgetting our duty. The things of the world then grab our attention, as we choose the county fair rather than our duty. As we spend time in the world, its goods begin to bore us, and then we come to our senses.
But our first reaction to our own awakening is to try and fix things in the flesh with our own understanding and by our own strength. We refuse to accept our predicament, and instead think that by our own efforts we can still fix this. This represents our four and a half years of trying to fight the judgment of God with protests, telling others, filing lawsuits, voting harder, etc – all to no avail.
Now in July of 2024, we have come to the end of the road. We have overslept. We have allowed wicked men to distract us. We have looked to the pleasures of the world so that we don’t have to think of the horror all around us.
Finally when we can’t avoid reality any longer, we look to the arm of the flesh to fix things. Not to God, but to our own efforts. God then fights against our efforts and it gets worse. Finally (as with the disappearance of my wife), you realize that you have no hope of fixing anything.
The dream ends there. Why? Because when you reach this point, you now have a choice to make. Either fully accept the predicament you are in, and trust God, and God alone, to do with you as he wills, or continue in your own strength and fail. And by trusting him, that means accepting whatever fate he has in store for you, whether good or evil. No more games. No more conditions. No more negotiations. No more attempting to claim whatever promise you want to claim, without a specific unction from the Lord. The choice is yours.
In closing, I would like to share an insight I was given this morning from the book of Ezekiel. Let us look at Ez 14:13-23:
Eze 14:13 Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it:
Eze 14:14 Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD.
Eze 14:15 If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts:
Eze 14:16 Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate.
Eze 14:17 Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it:
Eze 14:18 Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves.
Eze 14:19 Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast:
Eze 14:20 Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness.
Eze 14:21 For thus saith the Lord GOD; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast?
Eze 14:22 Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings: and ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it.
Eze 14:23 And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord GOD.
Basically God is saying that in times and seasons of total judgment, certain promises can be temporarily overridden, as the unspoken conditions of them are not being met. In this instance, the promise of salvation for you and your house does not hold, not even if you were one of the three most righteous men that ever lived. I know this is a truth that no one wants to hear. He who is able to receive it, let him receive it.
Yet even in the midst of this most crushing of hard truths, in verse 22 God says that he will choose a remnant, whose sons and daughters will be saved. Their lives of godliness will be visible to you, and they will provide you comfort and hope. However God shall choose them, and not you. Verse 23 says that God has a definite reason in doing what he has done, whether he reveals it to us or not.
In conclusion, this whole dream is saying that in these final days, things will occur God’s way, and God’s way alone. Gone are the days when we think we can manipulate him with our desires, our own will, and our own selfish prayers.
Let us seek to know him, his ways, and his will. Only by fully embracing his choice for our lives will we be able to survive what is about to occur.
Solitary Man
https://solitaryman.substack.com/
