I didn’t marry the woman of my dreams

My wife isn’t the woman of my dreams. She isn’t black. She isn’t Ghanaian-Canadian. She isn’t the woman I dreamed about in my youth.

When I said “I do” to Annie 10 months ago, I knew I wasn’t marrying the woman of my dreams.

It all started when I became friends with a beautiful, Ghanaian girl soon after I became a Christian at 19. We were raised in the same Pentecostal church and we became believers together at a young adults retreat.

We had a lot in common, especially common interest in each other. So one Saturday night, we agreed to do what many Charismatic Christians do before they enter into a relationship: we asked God to reveal the identity of our spouses in a dream that night.

We were raised in the Word of Faith, prosperity gospel movement. Our church regularly held “healing” crusades and suggested that miraculous and supernatural events were normal experiences for Christians. So we prayed and went to sleep that night believing God would answer our prayers.

But what happened next isn’t what either of us expected.

I had a dream that I stepped out of a limo at our Pentecostal church wearing a black tuxedo. I was several feet away from a bride waiting for me.

Halfway towards her, I was shocked when I saw the woman of my dreams. She was a beautiful, Ghanaian girl smiling at me. But it wasn’t whom I was expecting. It wasn’t my friend — it was her cousin.

But the biggest shock happened the following morning at church.

I couldn’t pay attention to anything that morning. I was amazed by that supernatural answer to prayer. But I was also disappointed that my friend wasn’t destined to be my wife. I knew her cousin. She was great. She was also a member of our church. But I didn’t like her at the time, I liked my friend instead.

Nevertheless, I was eager to talk to my friend that morning. So as soon as I saw her, I said: “I know who my wife is.” And she replied, “I know. It’s my cousin.”

In shock, I stepped back and almost fell to the floor. I couldn’t believe it.

She said she had a dream that I married her cousin: she and I had the same dream. It’s the most unexplainable thing to ever happen to me. I hadn’t said anything about the dream to anyone. She gave me details about the dream that no one else could possibly know.

We knew this was a supernatural incident.

Still, we agreed that we wouldn’t tell her cousin. We didn’t want that to shape her decisions.

But what about me? How could I make important decisions without considering the dream? How could the dream not be authoritative in my life? 

This is what charismatic Christians fail to consider: every revelation from God is just as authoritative as the Bible. Every prophecy and every vision or supernatural dream from God is just as inerrant, inspired, infallible, and authoritative as the Bible. All revelation is equally authoritative, and God cannot contradict himself.

Therefore every revelation from God demands obedience — including, apparently, the dream about my wife. For that reason, the dream almost destroyed my soul.

As I said earlier, I was a member of a Word of Faith, prosperity gospel church. However within a year after I became a Christian, through studying the Bible and listening to Paul Washer and John MacArthur — I learned that my church preaches a false gospel.

In light of Bible verses like 1 John 2:10-11, I understood the Bible commands Christians to leave churches that preach a false gospel.

However, God’s commandments in the Bible contradicted my dream.

Remember, in my and my friend’s dream: I married a girl from my prosperity gospel church, we married at the prosperity gospel church, and we were married by the church’s prosperity gospel pastors.

So the dream didn’t just reveal whom I was supposedly destined to marry — it was also apparently revealed that I was destined to stay at that church. 

I agonized over that for a year. Which should I obey, God’s commandment in the Bible or God’s commandment in my dream?

I considered disobeying the Bible because of that dream.

This is what inevitably happens when we embrace charismatic chaos and reject the sufficiency of the scriptures.

By the grace of God, I became Reformed and I decided to obey God’s commandment in the Bible and I left my church to find a biblical church. 

My dream isn’t inerrant, inspired, infallible, and authoritative — the Bible is.

There’s no normal explanation for how my friend and I had the same dream. I know that dream was supernatural, but I also know it was not from God.

That dream almost convinced me to disobey God. That’s what happens when we pursue signs and wonders over the scriptures — we make ourselves vulnerable to Satanic deception.

So Annie isn’t the woman of my dreams, she’s better than that. I didn’t marry her because of a dream. I married her because she’s the kind of woman the Bible tells me to marry.

Originally published at Slow to Write.