A few nights ago I had a dream. The most wonderfully vivid dream I have ever had. I ‘saw’
colors and ‘heard’ sounds. ‘Felt’ the wind and smelled the flowers. For a few minutes I really
thought that I was actually there, in reality.

I dreamt I was in heaven.
I remember feeling as if I had been there for many centuries already and all the grief and
fear and pain of this dark world was long gone. I could remember this reality but it was only as
a nightmare barely recalled in the light of high noon after the fever has broken.

 I was given an assignment by an angelic figure. A challenging job teaching some youngsters to
fly. It was then that I noticed something new about myself. I had wings. Beautiful soft wings
attached to my spine. I could even ‘feel’ the wings quivering as they lay flat and unfolded
against the skin on my back and suddenly I was filled with a great joy as I realized that I knew
how to use these wings. I knew how to fly. Just as I now know here how to walk without
thinking about it flight was the same elemental knowing. A true part of this new reality that
went almost unquestioned the knowing was so deep.

My wings folded unobtrusively into a tiny pack lying against my back, completely unnoticed
under the garment I was wearing. A garment with holes in the sides for my wings to unfold
and stretch out unencumbered. I stretched out my wings and saw them.

Pure white with slight variations in color, lined with shining gold at the very tips. I felt the muscles flowing throughout my wings. Flowing power from my spine near my waist up through my shoulders and into the
wings themselves out to the tips where the fine control edges were. I knew the feathers at the
tips as intimately as I know my own fingertips here. I knew I could catch a breath of wind and
soar gaining altitude or turn in great banking sweeps using these wings.

In fact, I knew that I had flown many thousands of times before.
I was standing on a cliff overlooking a great spread of Emerald Ocean. From a distance I
could see my ‘pupils’ coming toward me. Even though I call them ‘youngsters’ I knew that
each of them had lived many years on earth and were freshly resurrected from the dark vale
of death, still newcomers to the glories of heaven and were shocked and delighted by the
eternal burning joy without pain, grief, fear, guilt and selfishness to drown their soul’s hopes.

Each of them had eaten of the tree of life and stood transfixed before the throne of God’s
glory for many months until they finally were able to move to some of the other infinite delights
heaven holds. They were running and laughing as they made their comical way towards me.

Each of them had discovered their own wings recently and had at last been allowed the
chance to ‘learn’ to fly. But for now they stumbled and leaped flapping their wings (and arms,
a common mistake for beginners) Flapping over shorter trees and bushes only to come laughing and shouting down as they overbalanced one way, then the other
in their ignorance of the basics of flight.

 One of them, no doubt a ridiculous ‘wag’ in the dark world was using his wings to cartwheel launching himself fifteen feet in the air at a time.
Without the possibility of injury all fear was long gone and I think that they would have been happy to perform these ridiculous loops and hops for hours on end. I knew that they would never be complete without the release of true flight though.

With great joy I waited, savoring the moment as I prepared to do one of the essential acts I
had been created for; teaching flight to ‘newbies.’ “Teaching” in this world was nothing more
or less than encouraging more letting go. I knew that their wings and spirits already knew the
essence of flight and all they really needed was for me to help them visualize what was already
within their souls. With a single bound and a swoop of my own expert wings I sailed over to
them. Their eyes shown with longing and desire to fly as I had just demonstrated, effortlessly
and truly.

I introduced my self and began to teach them of the air. To tell them of the currents and
eddies of the sky. “Air is like a river,” I said, “with the same flow patterns and properties,
the same ability to support bodies made for it. Just like fish hang in the water your new
bodies were made to hang in the air and glide effortlessly through the slipstreams and channels
in the sky. You only need me to help you to become aware of what you already have within
your own souls.”

As I taught them it was clear to me I had done this many times before. That this speech was
the same pep talk I’d given hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. I spoke of the sky.
Of the solitude and grandeur of worship that comes over me every time I fly. My students
became very still and I could tell each of them were giving up the foolish notions of cartwheels
and frog hops they were experimenting with earlier.

Each of them grew a burning desire to fly higher than of an eagle as I spoke. I think this is
the essence of my teaching really, to instill in them the desire for altitude, for heights, for
worship on the wing. Back in the darkness of earth they shed tears as I spoke of these things.
Here they became more still, and solemn, and reverent and somehow merry as elves all at
once.

Just as I began to tell them to stretch out their wings, only this time with attention focused
on complete awareness of all the edges and feathers, to feel for the wind, the lift and
substance of the air they would soon walk on an Angel fell like a lightning bolt from the sky.

Swooping down to the cliff almost too brilliant to look at he landed near our little group and
nodded to me. I instructed my class to focus on the wind and their wingtips and went to the Angel.
He gave me a message from God. I was supposed to pray from someone in the darkness of
earth. Someone somewhere needed my prayers. It was kind of strange because I didn’t know
who or why, I just knew I had to pray. Now in this world prayer for me is always accompanied
by a weight on my heart and a sigh. A settling in and pulling sensation that grounds me to
God’s presence by faith alone.

 In short, prayer here is work. In that place, in that time, in that dream prayer was only one thing. One essence and reality, An outpouring of spirit that
was both an incoming and an outgoing.

I told my class to wait and not try and leap off the cliff yet, just feel the wings and the air I
would be back soon, then I launched myself up into the sky with the Angel flying right beside me.
Remember I felt as if I was really there, that all this was really happening. For the first time
I felt not just the memory of flight but flight itself. I felt the muscles in my wings contracting
and the feathers vibrate in the wind. I saw the Ocean from high above and smelled the fragrance of roses on the air.

 Then I began to pray and sing as I flew. Never have I felt the presence of God as I did in that dream. (Even as I type this I am shivering with the faint
memory left me.)
I cannot describe that joy anymore than I can paint the grace of a single wave sweeping onto
the sand. It was freedom. Complete connection with God. A complete immersion into His life
and joy and strength and wholeness.

 I flew and prayed but it wasn’t a prayer like any I ever prayed here in my life. It was a wordless glowing and smoking of my heart that simply burned.
That shone like a candle. A fire that burned but did not consume or use any part of me. All
the while I felt the air and ‘walked it’s paths with my wings.

I remember feeling my arms stretched out in front of me like superman even as my wings swept
the air. I put my arms at my sides and this felt more natural somehow. This wasn’t about the
strength of my hands anymore at all. (As if anything is ever about the strength of my own
arms.) I wished for my saxophone so I could play and worship in flight and decided that the
next time I would bring it with me to play in the air.

I cannot emphasize enough that this moment in this dream has been the most profoundly free
and moving spiritual moment of my entire life up until now. I am quite sure however that God
has an entirely different opinion about which moment has been the best in my life though. All I
am saying is that it felt to me, to be the deepest and widest moment I have ever experienced.

After a while, maybe fifteen minutes, maybe two years, I became aware of my class waiting
for me, their eyes following the Angel and I in our flight. I was aware that the Angel was
not protecting me or helping me, he just wanted to be with me as I worshipped. I felt the pull of my class and descended to the cliff.

Then I woke up. I wasn’t sad at waking from such burning joy, I didn’t weep for what was and
what just may be waiting for me in heaven, and I only felt a pure and deepening peace. I
became aware of the pain in my neck and for once didn’t heave a sigh as I accepted the
burden of broken-ness. Smiling and praising God for such a rare and wonderful gift I simply
loved him with everything that I am and savored the dream like a fine wine on my tongue.

Hoping to regain the dream I went back to sleep and remembered nothing more of my dreams that night.
The next day was one of lasting peace and quiet as the pain of life and the stress of work
tormented me. I kept remembering the feeling of flight.

 And more even than the flight was
the remembrance of the love and joy of God as I flew there in the dreamland of heaven.
Now… Was I actually there? In the spirit… In heaven? I don’t think so. Do I believe we
will be able to fly with wings like eagles in heaven? I honestly do not know. The bible doesn’t
say we will… But it doesn’t say we wont either.

 What I do know is that the Bible says that
“eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor has it entered into the mind of a man what God
has prepared for those who love him.” The Bible says that we will be in Everlasting Joy!

No matter what else is true about my dream that night I do know this one thing, it has
brought my heart one step closer to Jesus and THAT is a gift beyond compare, more valuable than millions of dollars.

He has more and more and more for all of us, remember the first miracle Jesus did. The
master of the feast said to the steward. (My paraphrase) “Most men serve the best wine
first and then when men have become drunk bring out the inferior but you have served the
best wine at the last.”
The best is yet to come.

Written by: Roy White
http://home.integrityonline.com/roy/
Used with permission.

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