Joseph, Daniel, Dreams, And Interpretation (Carousel dream and interpretation)

I relate more to Joseph than Daniel. Both were gifted with dreams and their interpretations, I don’t know what Daniel’s family was like before he and his friends were taken into captivity, but Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers. Yet even in captivity God was able to use these men, by giving them wisdom and the gift of dreams and interpretation. I am not going to talk about my childhood and my family right now, but how God has given me the gift of dreams and interpretation. I could not be able to do so without Him. It is one of the gifts that HE has blessed me with. I won’t say that I have always enjoyed this gift. There have been times when someone has prayed for me and has asked God to increase my dreams and in my mind I am screaming ‘No!’ I want sleep not dreams. I am getting off track, so the reason I am writing about dreams is because I feel that I am being led to do so. Old dreams are coming back to me vividly. Dreams that are mine and others that I was given the interpretation for. So I will be sharing them here.

Art by Reiko Chinen/Julie Sheppard

I can still remember a dream that I was asked to interpret for a friend who I went to church with even though it has been over 30years ago. They called me and said God had told them that I would interpret the dream for them.

This was their dream:

They were on a carousel horse and kept going around and around.

It was not a long dream, but they were confused and knew it meant something and so they prayed for God to give them it’s meaning. That is when they called me because they said God told them to. This was the first time that I can remember that I could see another person’s dream. Then God gave me the interpretation before they finished telling me the dream.

This is the interpretation:

They were going around in circles, and getting nowhere. Going through the ups and downs of life without making any progress. God wanted them to get off the horse and start moving forward. The ride on the carousel is fun but it will not get you to where you need to go.

Just as Joseph and Daniel were given interpretation of dreams by God, today God is calling men and women to dream and interpret those dreams, then share their meanings with others. Even if the interpretation is not a pleasant one. Like when Joseph interpreted the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker. The interpretation of the baker’s dream had a bad outcome for the baker.

I know dreams are personal and we may not feel comfortable sharing, but if the message is from God now may be the time to share. So I will be sharing dreams and their interpretations, and they will be both my personal dreams and one’s that God has given me the interpretation for. If you have a dream to share, I hope you will share it.

Art by Reiko Chinen/Julie Sheppard

Scriptures on dreams and visions:

Acts 2:17 “ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

Daniel 1:17 To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning. And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.

Genesis 40 / The Cupbearer and the Baker
1 Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt.
2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker,
3 and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined.
4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them. After they had been in custody for some time,
5 each of the two men—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison—had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own.
6 When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected.
7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so sad today?”
8 “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.” Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”
9 So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me,
10 and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes.
11 Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in his hand.”
12 “This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days.
13 Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer.
14 But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison.
15 I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.”
16 When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread.
17 In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”
18 “This is what it means,” Joseph said. “The three baskets are three days.
19 Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and impale your body on a pole. And the birds will eat away your flesh.”
20 Now the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials:
21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand—
22 but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.
23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.

Should we share our dreams and visions?

There are less than a handful of people that I have trusted in sharing certain things, especially some visions and dreams. Main reasons for this is not that I was afraid of what I saw or how real they were. It is because I don’t want everyone thinking I have lost my mind. Funny because I have no problem sharing that I can audibly hear God speak to me. So now I sit here and wonder if now is the time. So I guess I will share one dream and one vision and hope you don’t think I am crazy.

When I had this vision I was sitting on my porch in front of my last apartment. I saw at as clear as seeing my hands type these words. A person in soldiers clothing stood in my little yard and spoke to me. They said ‘I know that you would die before you would deny Jesus, but would you to save your child and grandchild?’ Then my daughter was brought before me and the person holding my daughter by her hair with a sword above their head, and they asked, ‘Will you deny Him now?’ That was it. I sat there stunned. I looked up and spoke to God and said, ‘They are right, I would die before denying You, but I don’t know if I would be strong enough to watch my child or any child be tortured or killed in front of me. I pray to be able to refuse to deny You, because I know it is better to die for you than live denying You. I pray if that day comes You will strengthen me, and I will not bow to the enemy’. That isn’t a very long vison or prayer, but a few years later I went to this thing called the ‘Apocalypse Experience’, at the Capernaum a replica town here in Texas that is used as both a studio set and for hosting experiences that take you through scenes of the Bible. The ‘Apocalypse Experience’ takes people through what the tribulation would be like. You walk through and the actors interact with you. At one point soldiers come running through and capture a woman and her son right in front of us. They hold her son down in front of her just like my vision, and ordered her to deny Christ and save her son. She refused and they were both shot (not for real) and killed.

I was shocked to see this scene played out right in front of me, even though I knew they were actors, seeing my vison play out in front of my eyes got to me. I couldn’t share what was going on with the friend I was with because I knew she would not understand. Yet this was not the first time something I had a vision or dream of played out in front of my face. Somehow things that played out in my mind somehow another person who I have never met or even spoken to managed to produce and I was able to see. You see when I was in my early 20’s which is back in the 90’s I had this dream. To my surprise in 2015 the movie ‘San Andreas’ was released which I did not see until I rented it and from the comfort of my couch began to watch my dream play out on my T.V. Not the actors and the earthquake in my dream took place in Los Angeles and spread to the Antelope Valley. Every natural disaster from the earthquake to the tidal wave that filled the cities turning the city of L.A. into Venice, Italy. Yet instead of ‘The Rock’ in a boat searching for his daughter in the movie. I was the one in the boat going from building to building looking for survivors, to get them to safety. So take out the actors and leave the natural disasters in this movie and you can see my dream if you watched this movie, you have seen my dream.

Now I know both vision and dream were played out in front of me were acts and were not actually real, but it never kept me from wondering if the day would come along when it would become reality. You see I have had some things I had dream actually happen. Nothing major, like going to a house I had never been to and doing exactly what I did there in my dream. I know the ability to dream and have visions and interpret them is a gift from God, and that scriptures speak of dreams and visions in the end times ( which I am not saying it is) but I believe why Joseph and Daniel have always been people from the Bible I can relate to. Joseph more than Daniel but that is another subject. When others have shared their dreams with me I have seen them play out in front of me as if on a movie screen, and God seems to give me their meaning most times.

I don’t know if I will share my other dreams and I am sorry that I am not giving my dream or vision’s interpretation but these two seem to be self explanatory. Hope you don’t think I am too crazy for what I have shared but as much as I would have liked to continue keeping them to myself I felt led to sharing them tonight, even though my hands are screaming at me for typing this long. But obedience is better than sacrifice.