Dreams, Visions And Experiencing God

When I was a little girl, the US military has something called "the draft." Every young man had to register for the draft when they reached a certain age, I believe it was 18, and they would be assigned a draft number. The military would select certain ranges of "draft" numbers to induct people into the military when they needed personnel. If your number was in the selected range, you did not get a vote, you were forced to enter the military and serve a minimum term of four years. People whose numbers were not selected were still welcome to join the military and there were all sorts of military recruitment offices and commercials and posters encouraging young men and women to serve in the armed forces. At that time, the US military had two levels of service: voluntary and mandatory (draftees). They were happy to use whoever came to them, regardless of which way they came in.

God seems to have two levels of service as well. He invites all of His children to obey and serve Him because they love Him. Some of them serve Him powerfully in a secular capacity and others in a paid (or clergy) capacity, where ministry is their full-time job. There are many very anointed people who are in full-time ministry because they volunteered for it. They prayed, "Lord here I am, please use me." And God heard their prayer and said yes, and gave them real ministry jobs to do with Him. There are others who are apostles and pastors and prophets in the business community. They also prayed, "Lord, here I am, please use me." And God chose to use them powerfully for His kingdom in their profession instead of taking them out of it. Most of the people who you find in full-time or secular ministry today are there because they volunteered for the position, and God was pleased to accept them and to anoint and empower them. They are the equivalent of those who went to the military recruitment offices and signed up of their own free will.

Others are in God's service because they were drafted. They had no choice in the manner. God created them for a destiny and they were never given a vote about whether or not to fulfill God's destiny on their lives. The prophet Samuel is an example of this. His barren mother made a bargain with God that if He would give her a son, she would give him back to God to serve Him all of his life. And God took her up on that bargain. Even as a small child, Samuel served God in the temple (because his mother made him do it). And God used him as one of the major prophets of the Old Testament. He was born with the destiny of being God's prophet and he didn't appear to have any choice in the manner. I don't believe that Samuel was an unwilling prophet, but he was never given a choice in the matter. You can read his story in 1 Samuel chapter one. Samuel was a draftee.

A draftee is someone who does not get a choice about whether or not they serve God, because God has created them for an explicit destiny. That destiny is important enough to His plans that He cannot allow it to go unfulfilled. Most people who God drafts go through some type of direct encounter with God where they receive a personal commission to serve Him. This encounter is often in the form of a commissioning vision.

Draftees are not the only ones who will get a commissioning vision -- God will give them to volunteers as well. But as far as I can tell, those who are draftees always get a commissioning vision, and those who are volunteers may or may not get one. Some volunteers get commissioning visions, particularly if God places them into one of His fivefold offices. Not everyone who has a fivefold office receives a commissioning vision from God. Let me give you an example: I think everyone would agree that Billy Graham is in the fivefold office of evangelist, and he is very effective in his office. As far as I know, he did not have a commissioning vision. He merely followed and obeyed God one step at a time and God put him into the ministry of holding crusades and leading many to Christ.

Commissioning visions are scriptural. The Bible shares a few of them with us in vivid detail. Let's look briefly at two of them: Isaiah's personal commission as a prophet (Isaiah chapter 6) and Ezekiel's personal commission as a prophet (the first two chapters of Ezekiel).

Isaiah had a vision of God on His throne, surrounded by angels and heavenly beings. There must have been a tangible sense of God's holiness, because Isaiah's reaction was conviction of his own sin (Is 6:5). That is not an uncommon reaction -- when we come in direct contact with God's tangible holiness, we cannot help but feel dirty and unclean by comparison. That is part of the reason that Jesus said no man can come to the Father except by Him -- God's holiness is so totally overwhelming in contrast to our fallen sinful natures that we simply cannot function when confronted with His presence. Many of the holy "super heroes" of the Bible became weak and nonfunctional in God's presence -- even the "greats" like Daniel and John both fell on their face as if dead before God when they were brought into His presence.

Isaiah was probably experiencing a strong taste of God's holiness and became acutely aware of his own lack of holiness. That is why he cried out and confessed "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of Hosts" (Is 6:5).

The Lord did not disagree with Isaiah or contradict him. Instead, God took actions to cleanse and purify him. First, God sent an angel to touch his lips with a live coal from the altar. Then Isaiah was told that his sin was taken away. I imagine that Isaiah felt pretty overwhelmed by all of this.

The very next thing God did was to commission Isaiah (verse 8), "Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?'"

We know that God expected Isaiah to serve Him as His prophet, and that is why He gave Isaiah this vision -- to commission him in this calling. God brought Isaiah before His throne and made him aware of God's desire for a messenger. Something welled up in Isaiah's heart when he saw and experienced God's glory and holiness, and he committed his whole life to serving God. "Then I said, 'Here am I! Send me'" (Is 6:8b) And God did not waste any time accepting Isaiah's commitment. "And He said, 'Go, and tell this people...'" (Is 6:9) then God began giving Isaiah prophetic messages to deliver as God's spokesman.

The prophet Ezekiel also had a commissioning vision, recorded in Ezekiel 1:1-2:8. It starts with, "Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God..." Then he goes on to describe the vision. He saw heavenly creatures, thought to be cherubim, who he described in vivid detail. Then he described the throne of God in a way where you know that it must have been a magnificent thing to see. Then he described "the appearance of a man high above it" and he began to describe the glory of the Lord. Ezekiel's reaction is recorded at the end of chapter 1, and on into the first two verses of chapter 2. "So when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of One speaking. And He said to me, 'Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you.' Then the Spirit entered me when He spoke to me, and set me on my feet; and I heard Him who spoke to me."

I would say that God had Ezekiel's full and undivided attention at that point. When he saw God's glory he became totally nonfunctional and fell on his face. The Bible does not tell us that all strength left him, but that is a reasonable assumption since he was unable to stand back up until the Spirit entered him and "set him on his feet."

The very next thing God does is to commission him in verse 3. Isaiah was offered a chance to volunteer, but Ezekiel was not. He was simply informed that he was being sent. "Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against Me to this very day. For they are impudent and stubborn children. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God.' As for them, whether they hear or whether they refuse--for they are a rebellious house--yet they will know that a prophet has been among them. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them nor be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns are with you and you dwell among scorpions; do not be afraid of their words or dismayed by their looks, though they are a rebellious house. You shall speak My words to them, whether they hear or whether they refuse, for they are rebellious. But you, son of man, hear what I say to you. Do not be rebellious like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you.'" (Ezekiel 2:3-8).

God did a prophetic acting out with Ezekiel by giving him a scroll that had "writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe" (verse 10). Ezekiel was told to eat this scroll, and it tasted as sweet as honey (Ezek 3:1-3). That was a prophetic acting out of God putting His words inside of Ezekiel.

There are some common elements in both of these commissioning visions, and those same elements seem to happen to modern-day people who receive a commissioning vision from God. First, they are brought into a vision where they come into God's presence and see His glory. Second, they are given a commission from God to serve Him. Third, there is some sort of prophetic or symbolic "acting out" in the vision -- Ezekiel ate the scroll of God's word to represent God putting His word inside of him; and Isaiah's mouth was touched by a hot coal from God's altar to represent God purifying his mouth to speak His words.

I know some people who have received some sort of commission vision from God. Most of them do not talk about it a lot because it is a very personal experience with God. But when I have been able to get them to talk about it, they all seem to have those same three elements -- seeing God and His glory in a vision, having some sort of prophetic acting out and receiving a commission from God to serve Him (with a resulting anointing or empowerment for that service).

I also had a commissioning vision from God. It is not something I talk about a lot, but I feel I should share it with you to help you get a flavor of what they are like. One minute I was in my bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed and praying. The next minute I was standing before Christ's throne, amongst a vast multitude of angels. I was very frightened and very aware of my own sin. God had every right to punish me for it, but He met me with mercy and grace instead. At one point, when I expected to receive punishment for something I had done wrong, He told me to hold out my hands to Him. I held them out in the manner of a school child about to be rapped on the knuckles by the teacher for misbehaving. I had been looking down at my feet in shame, knowing I fully deserved to be punished. But He did not strike my hand -- instead He kissed the back of my hand. I was so startled that I looked up into His face and had my first experience with His unconditional forgiveness and love. That experience melted my rebellious heart and that was when I committed in My heart to serve Him first and foremost in my life. Something happened in me at that instant, and I knew I would never be the same again.

Then He invited me to serve Him forever as His "bondservant." (Yes, I know that is not a fancy title, but that is what He commissioned me as.) He asked me if I would be willing. How could anyone experience His love and forgiveness like that and not be willing? Of course I was willing and I told Him so. Then He told me that to become His bondservant, I must take His mark for all eternity. Would I be willing to do that? I did not understand what He meant by "His mark." I wondered if it was some type of horrible scar or disfigurement. I felt afraid and wondered what He was asking of me. As I became frightened, the vision faded away and I found myself back in my bedroom, sitting on the edge of my bed.

I spent some time earnestly in prayer asking Him about what just happened and about what it meant to take His mark, etc. A little later, I suddenly stepped back into the vision and it continued from where it had left off. Again Jesus asked me if I was willing to take His mark. Again I asked Him what that meant. But He would not tell me -- He wanted me to just trust Him on it. I struggled with that decision for a while and I finally decided that He was so good and so loving and I was so grateful for His forgiveness that I did not care what it meant; I was willing to take His mark. (I had the mental image of them branding a slave like they might brand a cow or a sheep -- but if that is what He wanted of me, then it must be okay.)

After I made the decision to receive His mark, Jesus explained that it was not a physical mark, but a spiritual one. He said that the enemy would recognize this mark instantly, and fear and hate me for it, because I was especially set aside to serve God. If I were ever to walk away from God and out from under His protection, the enemy would surely kill me because of it. In this vision, I committed to serve and obey Him for the rest of my life and for all eternity following that as His bondservant.

That vision, and the commission I received in it, changed the course of my life. It caused me to eventually leave my high-paid secular job to do full-time ministry. It caused me to be sent to many different nations as God's spokesperson and representative. It has changed the way I think and the way I approach things. When I look back, I never regret the decision I made or the commission I was given -- rather I am very grateful to God for it.