I had a dream one night.  For those who do not know, dreams are basically a means by which your subconscious tells you things your conscience mind is not acknowledging(for whatever reason).  In addition, dreams are symbolic, not literal.  So if you have a dream about a lion, the message has nothing to do with lions, but rather has a meaning or message based in part on what a lion would symbolize to you.   As a result, a lion in my dream might mean something very different from a lion in your dream.  I wanted to mention this as a foundational matter, so you could better understand why I am interpreting the dream in the manner I am.

The Dream

I had a dream about a little girl(who I know in real life).  The only other people in the dream were her father and a group of nameless, faceless people(they are nameless and faceless because they do not represent any specific person or people).  At one point, someone came along and said that the little girl would be taken from her father(by the way, her mom was not in the dream, but that is also irrelevant to the understanding of the dream).  He hadn’t done anything wrong(also not relevant to the meaning of the dream).  What was relevant was that she was going to be taken away from her parents(who were represented by her father in the dream).

When I heard this decision, I was crushed.  But I was more than just crushed.  I was devastated.  I was crying uncontrollably, but it was even worse than that.  I was wailing, like no one ever wailed before.  I was inconsolable.   At this point you are probably thinking that the reason I was so distraught was because a father was having his child taken away.  If that is what you are thinking, you would be wrong. That is NOT why I was so distraught.

I was utterly devastated because this young girl was being taken from her godly parents to a place where she would not be raised by godly people.  That was what I cried out in the dream.  I implored the nameless, faceless people that she needed to stay with her parents because they would teach her the truth about God, and the people she was being taken to would not expose her to the truth about God.  THAT is why I was so completely and utterly devastated!  I didn’t want that to be taken away from her.

What Did the Dream Mean?

Symbolism of Individuals

There are four characters in this dream: the young girl, her father, the nameless and faceless people and me.  But these characters are all symbolic of other real people.

The Young Girl

I’m not going to lie to you.  When I first woke up and remembered the dream, I was a little disturbed.  I don’t dream about young girls, and even the thought of it was a little creepy to me.  But once I got past that, and it took a while, I had to think about what she represented, as that would be the key to understanding what this dream was really all about.  To be able to understand who she represented, I needed to think about what she represents to me.  This is where you have to be painfully honest with yourself sometimes in order to better understand dreams.  And luckily for me, it is really easy to understand exactly what she means to me.  But first, you have to understand that I don’t really like young children.   I know others that do, and I think that’s great, but not me.  However, this particular little girl is different, and always has been.  She is just the sweetest little girl you can imagine.  She is loving and kind and innocent.  Last year, after my dog died(a devastating occurrence in the real world), she and her younger brother both gave me sympathy cards they had made themselves.  It was so sweet I could barely get out an audible “thank you.”  I still have those cards, by the way.  To me, she represents goodness, kindness and innocence.  And because she is so young, she also represents ignorance.  The word ignorance has a terrible reputation.  Many seem to think it means stupid, but in fact it just means that you don’t know something, or you are not aware of something.  In short, you need to be taught.

This little girl needs to be taught about God(because she is ignorant), and is being taught about God by her parents(in real life).  In short, this is what she represents – people who are ignorant about God.  I say this because in the dream, that is what caused my distress.  It was that she was being taken away from people who would teach her about God, and she was being taken to people who would not teach her about God.  More on this later.

Her Dad

The young girl’s dad is someone I know and respect in real life.  He is a good man, a good husband and a good father.  He understands that teaching his children a love for the Lord is THE most important thing he can ever teach his children.  My brain could have picked other people, as he is not the only person I know like this, but the brain picks what the brain picks.  He perfectly represents people who love God and want to teach others(not just his children) about how much God loves every individual on this planet.

The Nameless and Faceless

Although they could represent nobody, and certainly they do not represent any one person in particular, I think they do represent people in general.  And the people in general that they represent are those that do not know God.  They don’t know Him.  They don’t care about Him.  That is part of the reason why they took the young girl away.   That is why they were taking her somewhere she would not hear the truth about God.  They don’t want her to know . . . ever.

Me

You might think I am just me in the dream, and I don’t really represent anyone else in particular.  And that may be true.  After all, I am the only person “seeing” the dream.  I tend to think that I represent me(in a smaller sense) but I also represent every Christian on the face of the planet.  I am Everyman, if you will.

What Does It All Mean?

I titled this article, “How Worried Are We About the Lost?”  because the dream was telling ME how worried I should be about the lost.  My reaction to a young, innocent child being taken away from her godly parents by a world of ungodly people is how every Christian should think about the lost.  I was devastated and inconsolable in my grief.  But is that how we feel in real life about the lost?  I know I haven’t; I should, and I will try to, but up to this point, I have not.  And shame on me for that!  I’m not saying that I have not cared about the lost in the past, but I would not rate my level of concern to be anywhere near the level of concern for the little girl in my dream.  So I need to change my way of thinking.  And my hope is that anyone reading this will look inwardly and make an honest assessment of their own lives, making changes in any areas found to be lacking.  May God bless your efforts.

Just One More Thing

I was genuinely surprised by one thing that did NOT happen in my dream.  I didn’t hate the nameless and faceless who were taking the little girl away from her dad.  I’m not suggesting that I should have hated them, but rather I am surprised that I didn’t hate them.  It’s actually a good surprise, because in many of my dreams I respond violently to adversity.  Here, there was only a sense of hopelessness.  There was nothing I could do to prevent it.  All I could do was watch . . . and hurt.  I don’t mean to end this on a negative, but maybe the feeling of hopelessness in the dream speaks to the urgency of the matter.  We can’t wait to tell people about how much God loves them.  The other people might not be here tomorrow to hear.  We might not be here tomorrow to be able to share with them.  So let’s not wait.