I had so wanted to see God in a dream as a child. I knew from the Bible it happened to Ananias who was sent to pray for Saul of Tarsus. I later got baptised but still had to keep converting myself each morning when I woke up to persuade myself God is real. I asked earnestly for the Holy Spirit in 1994 or sometime around that time and had a vision: a bucket of builders’ sand was emptied out in front of me and what was like subtitles said “Build the Temple”. I asked for confirmation to happen three times to prove this was the Holy Spirit. I went to a church service where all were allowed to take part. Three girls from Sunday School had written a song and they sang it: “Build build build the Temple; build build build the Temple; build build build the Temple”. A man with a guitar sang then spoke about King David being speechless when told his son would build the Temple. Then an older man spoke about building the Temple. I undetstood it meant to preach and use gifts of the Spirit to build up the church. But knowing the Bible spoke harshly of those who taught confidently without knowing what they were talking about I sought God again in earnest: “Make me see You, Father and Son and Holy Spirit”. I had a dream at this time - at the end of 1994 around Christmas time I think as we were about to have our new year break at work and had one day left at work. God stood there in front of me in my dream all solemn and awesome dressed in a robe to His feet with a beard and very serious - awe inspiring - and said “I am God” then I was told a letter of names would be put in front of me at work and ... I’ll miss the details. It all happened as He said and it saved the day for a dear poetically gifted colleague’s wedding in the nick of time before the holiday began. So this was the Father. Then in the middle of January 1995 - two weeks later I think - we had a tempest and a flood mentioned in Wikipedia and I was living above a river but high enough to escape flooding. The rain poured in torrents from the sky. I was reading “Come see the works of the Lord the destructions He has wrought” and “The Lord presides over the flood” so I went to see the river in flood and better know and worship God. On the way back I had up a huge umbrella (golfing umbtella) keeping me dry in the torrents as I walked up Blackswarth Road in Bristol UK. Suddenly it was like a crystal clear voice in my mind said “Put down you umbrella!” It had such absolute authority to it that immediately I put down the umbrella in the torrential rain and with cars driving past who could see it happen the rain stopped completely so suddenly there was not a single drop, it seemed, that touched me. I said to myself “It is the Lord” and remembered the disciples saying it too after the resurrection when Jesus stood on the shore as they fished and told them to put the net on the other side and they caught loads. I asked confirmation it was actually Jesus Himself and He did that masterfully so I knew He is truly Lord over my inner being. Then some time after this a friend took me to a church I had never been to because he said I would witness the Holy Spirit there. A leader spoke a message in an angelic language so awesome and in my mind it turned into English saying: “Consider the trees how they put forth buds and leaves. They do so by the authority of the name of Lord Jesus Christ” and then the leader said those same words too in English. Weeks later I was in the bath and meditating like I often did in the stillness and the word of God came to me out of the blue “Israel has sinned” and told me a sign is the eagle with the white eye overhead. I watched the news and the sign was there twice: the beginning of police helicopter services in Bristol overhead with white searchlights and cameras - and American spyplanes.
