I had a dream recently that I feel will embolden the Australian church. In the dream, a tree from my garden had overgrown over my neighbour’s fence and he was angry. He yelled that he was going to curse me with an old Aussie limerick/poem. He then began to dump fire onto my property, pouring out this fire across my garden.

I quickly ran around into my home, breaking the power of the curse in Jesus name and closing all the windows. I knew that this would keep the fire from the inside of my home. I saw it begin to burn the grass around the borders of my property although it wasn’t being destroyed or even changing colour. The fire was coming to our home but it was not being consumed.

I then ran up to the third level of my home where there was a heavy wind blowing even though all of the windows had been closed. There were two fire places and this wind was starting to stir embers from these fires and set off small spotfires in the home. This wind felt like witchcraft and it began to affect my vision. I was being blown over but I knew I needed to call out for buckets of water to put out the spotfires and fireplaces. I cried out twice but my voice was cracking and the words weren’t coming out. Finally I called out and I knew the buckets were coming and we would put out the fires.

This is a call for the Australian church to rise up and speak up. We have become a silent nation, a nation intended to roar who can barely breathe a whisper. A nation destined to uproot, build and plant but are at risk of becoming stifled. We must wake up out of our prayerlessness and find our voice again.

The neighbour represents the accuser, speaking violently against the church and the people of God. I believe the poem spoken by the neighbour represents tall poppy syndrome and a spirit that wishes to bring accusation, judgement and ultimately destruction to Australia’s voice.