Keep Your Eye On The Prize Dream

“This dream began with me standing on a very quiet corner in a large city with a Jumbotron-type monitor. They might not use the word “Jumbotron” anymore, but that’s what I think of, so think Times Square in New York. The monitor was streaming the news and the latest stock numbers on the side of downtown buildings. It was very early in the morning, the sun was up, the sun was out, and there were a few people out walking, but they were all holding umbrellas. Even though it was a full sunny day and nice weather, everybody had an umbrella out.

Now, just behind me was a city newspaper stand. When I say city newspaper stand, think New York City, think Chicago. The wooden doors that opened the newspapers, the magazines, and racks. They had this newspaper stand, magazines, and sundries. They were selling candy and cigarettes and things like that, you know, gum and mints and all those magazines and newspapers. The owner walked out toward the edge of the road, and he stood beside me because that’s where I was standing, by the road, just watching. He stood beside me; he was also carrying an umbrella, and it was opened as if it was raining. So he has the umbrella beside him this early morning, he’s standing beside me on the edge of the road, and he said, “Can you believe how bad the world is getting and how little government is doing to fix it?” And I simply said, looked at him, and said, “My faith is in the Lord.” Just very normally, just very casually, no emphasis, just, “My faith is in the Lord.”

And he kind of got in front of me, and he held the umbrella under his neck, and he grabbed my shoulders by both hands, and he said, “Keep your eyes on what we tell you, no matter how bad it gets.” And then he said, “And ask your Lord for better weather then because we’re tired of the rain.” And he peeked out from under the umbrella and looked up into the sky, took it back. Okay, now my first thought was, it’s not raining. Well, he got the umbrella, and he says, “You know, they’re tired of the rain.” At that moment, a box truck came around the corner, and the guy ran over about 10 feet from me and about just a couple of feet from the edge of the road, about two feet from this road to get it, but he stood right beside this big puddle, this big, very, very wet puddle.

And as the truck was moving around the corner, a side door opened, and a guy was standing there with a huge bundle that, to me, looked like a square hay bale at first. And if you’ve ever grown up in the Midwest, you know what a square hay bale looks like, and I moved plenty from my grandfather as a kid, okay? And he threw it in the air with great strength as the truck is moving, and it seemed like he was struggling to get up there, but he threw it to the curb, and it landed right in the middle of that puddle. And I realized then that this was a bundled stack of newspapers like they used to throw on the corner, and the newspaper guys would put in their stands, okay?

And it landed, and that splat and that big puddle, and that, and it splashed the guy that was standing there in this red stuff. It looked like blood. So, the square hay bale of newspapers lands in this big puddle, and it just throws this red-covered substance everywhere. Now, my shirt and my pants had been covered in this red substance at the papers had landed in, and I took out a handkerchief. Now, look, folks, I never have used a handkerchief in my life, okay? So that, that stood out to me, but I took this handkerchief out, and I cleaned myself off. I even went over to this cement-based water fountain, and I got this, I got the handkerchief, and I’m wiping off my shirt, I’m leaving wet spots on me, but I’m wiping off this red substance that looks like blood. I’m just, I’m wiping it off, okay? Because I felt I had to get it off quickly. That’s what I thought. I’ve got to get this stuff off me quickly before it stains.”

And the newsstand guy walked into the puddle, just walked into it, so it was deep. It was that deep and that big. Walked in the puddle, grabbed the bale, and he headed for the newsstand. And all the way to the newsstand, back about 20 feet, he’s dripping this red substance like a trail. Okay, and when he gets back, he drops this big bundle of papers, real heavy, on the ground. He just throws it down violently, and all this, all the wet stuff that’s on it splashes onto his newspapers, his newsstand, and it’s just all over the place, okay? He was dripping that red substance all the way to the stand from where he dropped the papers, and now it’s covered his existing papers and magazines on the shelves, and they’re all covered in this red stuff.

I walked over and asked if he knew what the red stuff was on the papers, and now here’s the black paper goods. And he looked at me like I was crazy, and he said, “What red stuff?” And I pointed to the papers and the magazines, and he said, “Sir, are you okay, or do you need some medical attention?” And I said, “The puddle the newspapers landed in splashed a red substance all over me and all over you.” And he stepped back and he looked around, and he said, “I don’t see anything on you that’s red.” He looks at me; he’s checking. There I explained that I cleaned it off, but I did show him the handkerchief that was now all splotchy red, covered with what had been on me. And he pointed a finger at me, just like this, just kind of looked at me like he was looking down the barrel of his finger, and he said, “Head on down the road or else you’re going to start scaring my customers away.”

Well, by this time, I see that people are walking by with umbrellas and a few are picking up the paper goods and leaving money in a jar and that jar is marked “The Declared Truth.” So, it says, “The Declared Truth,” and all these people are also covered in the red substance, and they were also all oblivious to that. The newspaper guy approached me again to ask how I was, and I noticed a button that he was wearing on his shirt, and it said, “If we don’t say it ain’t true.” And I asked him what that meant, and he struggled, and he said, “If you can’t figure it out, you’re worse off than I thought.” And then I then saw that the back of his shirt had a message that was spelled out in the splash marks of that red substance, and it said, “This Shallow State Is My Place.” “Shallow State is my place.”

And then suddenly, there was gunfire and a car going down the road behind me that was shooting in the crowd, and nobody moved any faster. Nobody even looked up. It was like, basically, if you just imagine just driving down the road, shooting on the sidewalk, and nobody notices. Nobody cares. Nobody’s worried or concerned. Nobody moved faster. Nobody cared, and nobody looked.

There was a young guy on the ground close to me who was bleeding profusely. I ran over to him and told him to lay still as he’d been shot. I went to grab my phone, but he said he was fine and would be late for a meeting, so he tries getting up, even though his leg was not working, and the guy’s covered in him, but he’s got several bullet wounds in him, and he just doesn’t seem. He doesn’t even feel like he doesn’t seem like he even knows he’s been shot. And I tried to hold him down when another shot rang out. He took a round right in his chest, and I said, “Lay down, lay down, and I’ll help you.” But he just kept trying to get up, and finally, his body starts to get real slow and weak, and he finally dies right there while he’s trying to get up. I laid him down, I looked around, and when I noticed that nobody was taking cover, and we live in a country today, if there’s gunshots, everybody turns her head, ducks down, looks for a way to go. Nobody was moving in this dream, even the newspaper guy I saw. He’d been shot, and he was limping around the stand. He was applying pressure to a gunshot wound in his gut area, but he did that. He wasn’t panicking. He wasn’t saying, “Hey, help me.” He was just going about his life with no concern for the fact he’d been shot in the gut, which is not a good place to be shot.

And there were others on the ground dead, but most of the people were just walking by and paying no attention to the hurt ones. And all the people walking by still had their umbrellas out, but nobody was running or hiding. And I began to pray in tongues. Now, folks, I’m Pentecostal, and I pray in tongues. I’ve already prayed in tongues today, but in the dream, I began to pray out loud in tongues, and I could just… I was watching people die. I was watching people… I was watching nobody concerned about what was happening, and it was heartfelt. I was sobbing, I was weeping. I could feel the loss. It was a very empathetic dream, but nobody seemed to be taking anything seriously at all. They were walking by the dead people. They took no cover from the gunman, and the Jumbotron started a countdown, and at the bottom of that screen, showed the stock market was tanking quickly. And on the screen, there was a picture of the Bulls on Wall Street, and a video of people nonchalantly breaking windows. I mean, with no concern. Just tapping on the windows, breaking them, throwing chairs. No emotion, no looks on their faces. They were breaking windows in tall buildings and then jumping out of those tall buildings. And there were no screams or cries, no yell. It was like there was no energy from these people at all. No screams, cries of anguish. Others around them paid no attention, as if it was not real or a joke.

And then a news anchor also, who was covered in the red substance from…like, she was, like, in a newsroom, not out in the street. In a newsroom, she was covered in that red substance. She was sharing some video footage of things happening around the area: people being shot, people jumping out of windows and all this. But as she spoke, she spoke in a very slow monotone. I’m going to just imitate what she did. She said this. She said, “Yes, people are dying, but don’t worry and don’t hurry because we know it’s going to be all right. Trust us because we know.” She literally said, “Yes, people are dying, but don’t worry and don’t hurry because we know it’s going to be all right. Trust us because we know.” And with that, she gave this big thumbs up, and then she winked so hard. It was almost like she was going to be injured, like one of those… I mean, she went all out to the point where, even in the dream, I kind of, like, pulled myself back from the screen, thinking, “This is ludicrous.” But she winked so hard, looked like she might be injured because she was doing it so graphically.

And then I began looking around at people covering in the red substance, and they were everywhere. So, all of a sudden, the crowd around me on the street in this big, this big city town, they’re everywhere, but nobody seemed to actually see the chaos. There were people laying down. There were people jumping out of windows, but you did not hear yelling or screaming or crying. People were just going through the motions. They seem to purposely ignore it. And then a man walked up to me and asked if I was all right, and I turned to see it was the man that I always see. And he said to me, I didn’t say anything. I just turned to him to look because I’m watching, and he says, “I see it all, and I know it all. But many in the Church see as much as these that you see in the streets. Too many in the Body see nothing, and they see that on purpose. I say to you, keep your eyes on the prize and be consistent in your discipline. They need to purchase salve for their eyes so they can see, and once seeing, get busy serving me in public.” And that’s exactly how he said it, “Get busy serving me in public.” The blind are leading the blind into the ditch, and I cannot help them there, though I want to see with my eyes, as that is all that needs to be seen. See with my eyes as that is all that needs to be seen and refuse to see what they want you to see.” He then walked away