In one dream I had on 7/4/2020, there was a great sadness over the land. The financial times were desperate for a great number of people and once beautiful strong families now found themselves in horrible situations where they began to see everything they had worked for be taken away. Addictions to drugs and alcohol were rampant and were caused by their need to escape the harsh and destitute landscape of poverty caused by a major shift of economic disasters in America.
Dream
In this dream, I was found myself parked outside of a house. The lawns of the surrounding houses were dead and dried up. Through my car windows, I watched as a family living in a home next door to the house I had parked in front of was in the act of moving out. They had put all their belongings into whatever storage containers they could find to move, but most of everything was in garbage bags and plastic shopping bags. I had the word of knowledge that the couple moving from their home were suffering from severe drug abuse and were losing everything they had.
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The couple was barely recognizable as human beings. Their body movements were jittery, confused and sick. They gave little thought to what they were doing, they were in extreme desperation, but were resigned to moving out of their home. The couple I saw in this dream appeared to be in the 60-70 years of age range, but were, in likely in their mid 30s to early 40s. It was made obvious to me that while they once had used drugs on occasion as a recreational escape to get them through their lives, jobs, and days, they now found themselves in full-blown addiction where they were losing everything they had because of it. They sold everything they owned to keep getting their drug choice.
The once grand house they were leaving was once a beautiful home in a nice neighborhood, but it was now broken down, destroyed by abused minds breaking things and destroying their own property, (I had a vision of them doing illogical and destructive home repairs) because of their damaged minds.
but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
James 1:14-15
The couple had two teenage daughters, but their relationship with them was strained and the daughters were attached to a young man who came to help them move their things. He appeared at the end of the street, which was once a gated community help the family move, but I perceived that he knew that the stuff they piled up on the curb at the edge of the gated community would never be seen again. I watched as the couple’s daughters came back from a truck with the young man and walked back to the now torn-apart house through the neighbors yard that my car was parked in front of. They never looked at their parents as if in shame or embarrassment for them.
The couple continued dragging their belongings in the plastic bags through their neighbors yard, across the path of the car I was parked in and to the curb near the gates of the community. They were visibly very thin, frail, and sick with missing teeth and a beaten down appearance. Their bodies were gaunt, muscular from dehydration, very pale, and their behaviors were sporadic, like they were controlled by a force no one could see. Although they walked through their neighbor’s yard to move their things, they could no longer recognize that what they were doing affected and upset their neighbors. They only knew they were on their own, with mountains of belongings in plastic bags littering the street at the end of the once beautiful and prospering community they lived in. They were now evicted.
Interpretation
God speaks through dreams and visions such as these. In this instance, He was showing me that this is the plight of America when we choose to disregard His commandments and worship the things of this world (drugs). In this dream, the once hopeful family who had a beautiful home in a nice neighborhood were now in ruins because of their love affair with the world. There was little to recognize who these people once were, what they did, or what the purpose was that God created them for.
The couple in the dream were now lost and free-falling into a pattern of those who lose their way in life and are no longer able to heal because of bondage to sin. It is the easy path and wide destructive path for many described in the Bible. A destruction pattern that is not unique and is created by our enemy to steal, kill and destroy God’s people by their acts of complacency to God’s word and the lack of knowledge of the devil’s devices.
My children are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.
Hosea 4:6
This dystopian dream is something God showed me in this hour, because these are also His children and our neighbors. I was sitting in the car in this dream, because this is God’s view looking into the lives of His children when they no longer see or recognize Him. They reject His existence and do not seek His guidance. Even if they did know that God was real, they wouldn’t likely acknowledge Him because they were distracted to the point that they appeared as zombies to any casual viewer of the scene.
The dead grass surrounding all the homes indicated the dry spell each family had because of disconnection from Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. We are like blades of grass and without God, we are nothing.
Pandemic Affects
In this hour, there are many in our society that are falling through the cracks. In the past few short months of this pandemic, we have seen nearly 1/3 of mortgage and rent payments being missed in June and July of 2020. People are falling behind with credit and loan and utility service payments and our society is only seeing the beginnings of the potential wide-spread homelessness and financial ruin of the vulnerable. As people become hopeless and desperate with the debilitating loss the pandemic has created, they often turn and try to cope with drugs and alcohol, which in turn only take more of their resources and worse, take the last shred of dignity people once had. Sadly, many people are on the path the dream showed me.
Child Abuse & Sex Trafficking
In my dream, the two teenage daughters were with the man who was helping the now-homeless couple manage their belongings. The Lord revealed to me, their daughters were being prostituted to the person to provide payment to help their parents.
National Sexual Assault Hotline sees record demand during pandemic. Many reaching out are children.
With the stay-at-home orders, we have seen an increase in reported and unreported abuse cases with children. These have long-lasting effects and cause destruction in families and the lives of survivors who now have to deal with the trauma and lifelong damage and shame many experience when abused.
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One of the most horrific effects of abuse and poverty is the potential for sex trafficking that occurs when people-turned-victim, no longer have any means to sustain their daily living needs through work or any other means and turn to do whatever it takes to survive. We have seen this in other countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and it’s a growing problem, and in America, it’s an epidemic.
Keep God’s Churches Open
When I first walked with God through neighborhoods, He showed me that His churches were being closed while abortion clinics, urgent care clinics, addiction clinics, and mental health clinics were growing and increasing. We have it wrong! We need to seek God first in all things and His church was always meant to be the meeting place to get help. We need churches open!
There is a chance to recover and the church is the way forward. The recent closings of the churches due to the pandemic response has been a disaster for people, who are looking at all the hopeless and fear-filled messages fill the radio-waves and internet signals around us. God’s church restores people. While His Holy Spirit is not confined to a church building, it is however, in each of His people. We need to meet together. We need to help each other and offer safe places for people to meet to help those who have lost hope, before they turn to chemical dependency and worldly destruction.
Conclusion
It doesn’t have to be like this. We all can help each other. In fact, God commands us to help. We can do so with prayer, with reaching out to the poor, the impoverished, the drug addicted, and those who are falling through the cracks. We can keep the churches open and do better at reaching out to the community.
It is written that a picture is worth a thousand words. When God gives a vision or a dream, it is the same. God has shown me what is to come and it does not have to if we act now. We must get over ourselves and reach out to the lost and save the children now, before it is too late and before the wolves and the lions of the world come to destroy our society consume our children.
Each of our lives are a ministry. We each have a responsibility to help those who no longer are able to help themselves and to help those incapable of helping themselves. As parents, we should be aware of each of the families in the neighborhood and seeks God’s guidance as to how we can help each other. As members of the community, teachers, officers, leaders, clergy, and workers, we each have a responsibility to be our brothers’ keeper. To have watch over them to make sure they are doing well and are able to survive and not fall into Satan’s devices or plans to destroy them. To carefully watch over the children, as they are a favorite target by the enemy. We all can do this through meaningful interaction, keeping involved, and through fervent prayer.
Remember to pray, for your family, for your neighbors, for your region, your city and for your nation. All God’s people are in a desperate hour and we need God to intervene and help us. We all need Him to sustain us through this pandemic and through the results of sin by giving our burdens to Him and by doing what He called each of us to do. We are not alone in this world, God is with us!
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
You are loved.
In Christ,
Darrell B. Jones