Dinner Table Warfare
Words by Ellen White, Bristol, England
A lunch with friends takes a dramatic turn when God ‘over-turns’ the tables.
One Sunday shortly before lockdown, my husband and I had invited two new women from church over for lunch. My husband was the Assistant Pastor at this church and the women were both younger believers who we wanted to reach out to, welcome, get to know, include, bless, minister to. Both of them were from a different racial background to me, they were both quite quiet and shy, and one of them had been a christian for less than a year. In my unspoken sinful pride, I guess I saw "us" as being the ones to bless "them". Well God was about to turn the tables in a big way.
After a fun and chatty lunch surrounded by our seven children, they went off to play, and the four of us adults stayed chatting around the table. In God's providence the conversation went to such a place of honest sharing, that I felt comfortable relaying a dream I had had a few days before.
It was one of those half-awake/half-asleep dreams, where I was fully conscious of what I was seeing and where it stayed with me long after I had woken. I can still recall it vividly to this day. It happened on a Thursday morning, the day of our bin collection.
I was lying in bed, just waking up and I could hear the sound of the bin lorry coming up our road. Suddenly I saw myself being somehow told to climb into our black wheelie bin and to hide in it. The bin men picked up our bin, attached it to the back of the lorry, and I was tipped out into the lorry along with all the rubbish. By the time the bin men realised there had been a person in the bin, I had been crushed by the compression mechanism in the lorry. There was a voice in my head telling me this is what I need to do, this will be good, this is the only solution.
Now to explain where my life was at before this point - my husband had recently been told by our local church leaders that they did not respect his leadership and that he was not going to be able to stay on in his role as Assistant Pastor, or even have their backing to move somewhere else in church ministry. Everything we had invested in as a couple and as a family, was being, as it were, "binned", by respected, kind christians in our local church. We were going to be losing our job, our role, our status, our prospects, our church family, our house, and our hopes for the future. And that Thursday morning, it was as if the devil had piggy-backed on all these feelings of human rejection and failure, and made it very clear to me that I belonged in the bin. And I couldn't think of a good reason why I shouldn't do what he said, and get into that bin. It seemed like the sensible option for me, I couldn't argue with it.
Now back to the Sunday lunch table. Upon sharing this dream with these two women and my husband, I was trembling and crying a bit. And at this point, my two sisters - both younger than me, less spiritually "mature" than me, still relatively unknown to me - start boldly speaking God's truth over me, countering the lies of the devil, quoting Scripture that God loves me, that the devil is a liar and is out to kill & destroy - they start authoritatively speaking to me and over me, rebuking the lies of the evil one, rebuking evil spirits of fear and anxiety and bitterness and resentment. My husband asks them if they could pray over me - they both lay hands on my shoulders - the new christian stands up beside me and prays in such a way that I have never heard before - her speech was pouring out with such confidence and boldness and authority and clarity and love - she was fearless! She was unstoppable and full of Bible verses that she afterwards said she wasn't even aware she knew! I was weeping and weeping, so overwhelmed by God's love and the reality of his loving Holy Spirit being at work in my life. Both women are praying back and forth, one and then the other, and then the other one starts praying in tongues over me. I did not understand it, and up until this point I have been very resistant to (even mildly repulsed by) the notion of speaking in tongues, even though it is clearly taught in the Bible I say I believe. But I just let the words of the prayer bless me. I am fully aware that there is something big going on in the spiritual realm, and that I cannot comprehend all of it, but I do know that God loves me and is blessing me right now. My husband proceeds to give an interpretation of these tongues which further communicates God's love towards me and his victory over the evil one. I am running out of tissues, so many tears are flowing and so much joy and relief is flooding my heart.
My sister then sits back down and expresses her amazement at what just happened. My husband cannot believe his eyes. He has been open to the supernatural work of the Spirit for some years now and I have been resistant and skeptical, clinging to my "safe" belief that the Holy Spirit only ever works through God's word the Bible, and that supernatural wonders from Him were restricted to the days of the early church. He has just watched me experience a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, to bless me and deliver me from an oppressing spirit of fear and condemnation - in a way that I didn't expect.
My heavenly Father turned the tables for me on that day. He turned my sinful pride on its head and poured out his blessing on me when I didn't even know I needed it, rather than allowing me, in my pride, to "bless" others.
So much joy! Thank you Father. I want to keep knowing your work in my life.
Words by Ellen White, Bristol, England
Jun 30
