In the dream, I was seated in a large church sanctuary in the front row. Hundreds of people had assembled. I was the guest speaker.  I was wearing only a pair of boxer shorts. Nothing else. To say the dream was uncomfortable would be an understatement. As I drifted in and out of sleep for the next few hours, each time I went back to sleep, I was brought back to the dream picking it up right where it left off.

As I sat in my chair, I began to search my Bible for my prepared sermon notes. I couldn’t find them no matter how hard I searched. While my frantic search continued, I looked down and saw a metal garden rake that was leaning against my chair. At that point in the dream, I gave up trying to find my notes or understand what was going on and asked the Lord, “What’s happening?”

The Lord said this was a new day with a new message requiring a different form of delivery.  My notes were no longer my focus. I stepped up to the pulpit and began to preach. Instead of preaching as I normally would do, I began to pull the rake across the carpet of the sanctuary. The carpet turned into soil. As I pulled the rake back and forth, it began to grab the rocks and debris that were embedded within the spiritual soil of those gathered. At that point, I woke up.

While the Lord and His truth never change, the message He gives the Church will change in its content and delivery to align us with a new and unfamiliar season. The changing message and its delivery is not a change in the core meaning of the Gospel, but in its application for a new season.

The rake of the Spirit is being handed to those who have approached this unique time in the history of the Church with assumptions from the past that were embedded in their training and history. They will be placed in situations naked of all past formulas of faith that will no longer work in this new context. They will be called to comb through their personal lives first and then through the ministries they represent removing those things that do not give fresh revelation a place to be planted and prosper. 

Those offering these naked messages will feel like I did in the dream while standing exposed before an immense sanctuary wearing only boxer shorts. They will feel vulnerable and out of place, even mocked with laughter and dismissal for the style, content, and presentation of the message they deliver. Their willingness to speak the truth in love at all costs will reveal the power of their innocence and willingness to be vulnerable for the sake of obedience. They will be used to open doors for God to move in powerful ways.

Their innocence is not an ignorance of the surrounding realities of life. It is an informed innocence that chooses to rest and simply obey when they feel exposed and vulnerable and do not fully understand what is taking place. That rest comes because they stopped trying to figure out all that is happening in the world and radically trust God even if what He asks them to speak or do is the equivalent of standing exposed before a sanctuary full of people without pretense or self-protection and simply deliver the word of the Lord.