A true story:

I used to have recurrent dream – at least I think it was recurrent; it may just been that when I dreamt it I also dreamt I’d dreamt it before – that I was prevented from getting home by an oversized lion that blocked my path. It did this not by baring its teeth and confronting me, but by simply lying down in front of my garden gate, apparently asleep. I was always afraid to disturb the sleeping lion in case, once awake, it attacked and ate me. Instead, I would gingerly step round it and walk on, away from my house. In a variation of the dream (I think), I’d turn around and head back the way I’d come.

Evidently, the large lion symbolised something, though I couldn’t understand what it was. Perhaps, I thought, it represented my psychic inability to be myself. After all, I experienced this dream before I came out. It was equally possible the lion was the devil, as described in 1 Peter 5:8, and Satan had invaded my dreams, was blocking access to my heavenly home. Maybe it was – shudder – the demon of homosexuality, which I knew existed because Christians said it did, driving me off the straight and narrow.

A then came the moment of revelation! Jesus is referred to as the Lion of Judah in Revelation (5.5), yea, the Kings of Kings who roars like a mighty lion (Amos 3:8). That’s when I realised that my dream lion was Jesus, protecting my eternal salvation and heavenly home from the attacks of the devil and my very own sinful nature! Why else must I take a different path or turn back, which is one meaning of repentance?

Jesus himself, the Lion of Judah, the King of Kings made himself known unto me in this dream, not once but many times. Praise the Lord! In revealing himself, the Risen Jesus was telling me that the only way to salvation was through Him and Him alone. Only He guards the way. How blessed I am to have had His very real presence in my dreams. He truly lives and has appeared to the very least of his followers – me.

There can be no other explanation for my dream experience.

Can there?