“I saw gold paint dripping down the walls,” she said. And later she added, “I see gold sparkles.” And she motioned with her fingers like rain from heaven. I looked around and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Another time, a different teen said, “I saw gold dust falling from heaven and shooting out of the vents.” (The fans that blew air in those vents were not on).
No one else reported seeing these things.
What are these seers actually seeing?
Seers see things in the Heavenly Realm
Let me back up. In my local church, I volunteer as a youth pastor. In both of these contexts, and many others I’ve not specifically mentioned, we were concluding a worship service, where we asked the Father to engage us as we worshipped.
And God moved. Heaven broke into earth. The Holy Spirit descended on us in a thick, heavy way. Words fail to describe what we feel when Heaven invades the Earth. It was like being under a waterfall, but without getting wet.
Some people have a hard time accepting this concept, but that is exactly how Jesus said to pray to God:
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
And the Bible concludes with Heaven descending to Earth, visibly and unstoppable.
The metaphor I use to describe what happens when we worship God is this: a portal between our realm and God’s realm opens. There are numerous accounts in the Bible of a portal, window or doorway opening between Heaven and Earth, sometimes with angels ascending and descending between heaven and earth.
Certainly, Christians have open access to Heaven at all times, so perhaps the better metaphor is this: it releases the heavens to descend through the open window that already exists.
Attributes of Heaven
I think of Heaven as another dimension, where God lives. The culture of Heaven has several characteristics, including
- God is worshiped, honored, and celebrated.
- Music and art are uplifting and not degrading.
- Beautiful physical features everywhere.
- Perfect health. No pain, no depression, and no demons.
- God’s Presence is everywhere.
- God’s will is done.
- Everyone is celebrated. No one is put down.
- Heaven honors who we are, not who we aren’t.
When physical descriptions of heaven mention gold, I doubt they mean the kind of gold referenced by our Periodic Table of Elements. But “gold” is a useful descriptor for what they see.
Gold Sparkles and Gold Dust
So when God is invited and engaged through worship of His people, Heaven may descend in some way. When Heaven descends, the attributes of Heaven invade the Earth. People are honored. People get a glimpse of how God sees them. Sickness is healed. Aspects of Heaven’s atmosphere manifests. The gold sparkles and dust that some seers and sometimes non-seers notice are… well, I don’t know.
My interpretation is this: Seers brains are already wired to pick up things in the spirit realm, and in this case, their brains are picking up and trying to interpret some aspect of the heavenly realm in the spirit – spiritual blessings, spiritual gifts, the presence of angels, the Breath of God, the Love of the Father, the Presence of Jesus, the Wind of the Holy Spirit… something from Heaven is invading Earth.
The brain picks up on that something in the spirit realm that is beautiful and interprets it according to its physical and chemical limitations. Whatever it literally is… it’s wonderful.
Let’s land on the Breath of God for a moment.
When God Breathes on Us
Think of a newborn baby in the mother’s arms. A newborn has little receptors in his or her nostrils that react to CO2. The baby’s eyes can only see about 12 to 18 inches away.
When a baby rests next to his or her mother’s breast to feed, the mother’s breath from her nose will hit the baby’s nostrils. The CO2 receptors pick up the breath and triggers the baby’s own breath response. Thus the baby learns to breath.
At the same time, the baby can see just far enough to gaze into the parent’s eyes – the distance from the mother’s eyes to a feeding or snuggling baby. The baby is also next to the mother’s heart, sensing the beat, as the baby did during his or her fetal development. This aspect of feeding, breathing, heart beating all creates an unbreakable bond between infant and mother.
And when fathers bottle feed, a similar bond is created.
This is a picture of what happens when the Father engages us during worship. His Breath gives us life. His Spirit feeds our spirit. His heart beat reassures our emotions. Worship engages every aspect of our being, building intimacy with the Father.
Those who can see in the spirit realm then pick up on heavenly aspects of this intimacy and it looks golden.
