Visions

[David Bailey]

I am really not sure how to go about this and no I don't think I need meds lol. Ever since I became a CHristian I have seen things that I can not explain, some of them quite scary to me some not as much. Basically afraid to ask in church because I love the ppl of my church and don't wish to become an outcast for being thought to being nuts.

 What are your views on visions? Is there a way to make them stop or just go away?

I also have PTSD and the visions are not making that any easier but the visions have nothing to do with me for the most part. Once I said to a woman that I had never met before that her daughter needed to stay home from work that day and she screamed at me wanting to know how i knew she had a daughter and all I said was today is a bad day please ask her to stay home.

 That night I saw an accident on the news.. Again that could have been avoided had I explained myself better but more then likely she would have blown me off.. I just don't know. I do see a therapist for many of my other issues that I have from the life I was Blessed enough to be rescued from and he has no idea other then saying .. well its probably just something to do with your ptsd.. and this is what i pay for lol

 I have asked God to stop them, to remove them from me. I have asked others to pray the same thing and they say no no no that is a gift from God. I am like a gift? I feel like saying ok now I give this gift to you.

Sorry I don't mean to be ungrateful to God for this gift but I really do not wish to have it.

[GandalfTheWise]

Can God give visions and dreams?  and does He?  I'd say yes and yes.  However, I wouldn't assume that every vision is from God.   I'm not sure I would call having visions a "gift" so much as God doing something to give some type of guidance in some manner for a particular situation.  In Acts 2:17, Peter refers to the OT book of Joel.  In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

The people I've known personally who've had visions have usually also had some sense of discernment and the wisdom of what to do with them as well.  The people I respect most are the ones who take the risk on themselves when sharing something like that.  Instead of an authoritative "God told me to tell you...", they'll say something more like, "This may sound strange, and I may be wrong here, but I felt like God told me to tell you...".

Also, we don't know what God's purpose is.  In the example you gave, perhaps God's purpose was to protect the daughter, or perhaps God's purpose was to show this woman (through something that happened later) than God actually had an interest in her and her family.

I'd recommend finding a mature Christian as a confidant and sounding board who has a good sense of spiritual discernment.  We all need someone in our life who we can bounce questions off of who will give us common sense feedback and spiritually discerning feedback.  The two extremes to avoid (in my opinion) would be someone who'd deny any possibility of God giving visions and or someone who unquestionably accepts everything.  The former will just basically tell you to flee away from it and ignore all visions, and the latter won't give any useful feedback because they won't question anything.