Dreaming of God
What are we as Christians to make of dreams? Dreams are one of the least talked about spiritual encounters in the church, yet we find God speaking to people through dreams throughout the scriptures. It is impossible to miss all of the encounters that people have with God in scripture. Yet, we are typically very dismissive of the power of dreams and their ability to connect us to God. We often believe the words of this Despair poster, that only idiots chase dreams.
Certainly some of this struggle comes from our Enlightenment manufactured education and culture that tells us that reason is the primary vehicle for understanding God. But, it goes beyond that. For some reason we take our dreams and relegate them to simply the dark or difficult to understand parts of our brain that having nothing to do with the active reality of living. But I don’t think that is true. The more I think about the dreams I have, both actively and subconsciously, the more I realize that my dreams give me a lot of insight into my soul.
Dreams have an ability to connect us to the mystery of God. As you think about God as creator, doesn’t seem that somehow God dreamt us up. God imagined us and spoke and crafted us into existence. God imagined us and then we existed. Our ability to dream reconnects us with the very act of creation. So we need to learn how to dream in order to really explore who it is God has created us to be.
I have a lot of dreams. Most of my dreams growing up were for fame or glory. I dreamt of being a star athlete, the lead singer of a band, or even president. But at the heart of those dreams was the belief that something great could come from my life. That is still my dream, but I understand greatness a lot better now. As I dream about God’s plan for me and God’s call for me, fame, money, and acclaim have nothing to do with greatness. I desire now to see God do great things all around me and through me, but understand that none of it will be done through my efforts or gifts. God can use each of us to bring about the greatness of his kingdom on earth simply through our submission and faithfulness. All glory there is to be had is God’s glory.
So I dream of churches that are thriving. I dream of churches that lay aside all that entangles and traps us from truly loving God (money, sex, power, success, the praise of others) and really discovers God’s mission for the church. I dream of seeing a revival sweep across our nation. Ever since I was in college and had visions of revival I have believed that our generation will see a spiritual awakening the likes of which haven’t been seen in a hundred years. I dream of being overwhelmed by the glory of God manifested in transformed lives all around me. I dream of God.
We need to dream more. We need to share our dreams together. We need to encourage one another and offer input and interpretations to our dreams. We need to take seriously the connection that our dreams can have with our creator. So what are your dreams, everyone has a dream…..
You are a dreamer, a visionary, and a straight up idea person. You are very creative.
I’m dreaming about free range livestock.
You should blog about that one.
When I think about God speaking to us in our dreams, I think primarily about actual dreams, as in dreams and visions. When we use the word “dreams” to talk about our imagination of the future in a conscious thought process, we take the mystery and wonder of what God can truly tell us through dreams that occur while we are asleep. It puts the power back in our own ability to think with our minds and back on the rational process of wondering “what if.” This goes back to your Enlightenment comments. We rely on our conscious minds almost completely and ignore or are unaware of what God is speaking to the depths of our spirits.
When we truly receive dreams from God, they are awe-inspiring, they draw us into God’s mystery, they strike fear in our hearts, and they transform our souls in ways we can never know.
Along with the Enlightenment fueled reliance on reason, the other major reason I see people not being led by God’s dreams and visions is that we are not allowing silence and proper sleep patterns into our lives. When we stay up late, get up early, and work hard all day we cannot rest properly at night. When we let stress keep us up or wake us up, we too often turn on the TV instead of turning to God. Some of the ‘thin places’ in my life where I connect with God most intimately are at 2 in the morning when I wake up for apparently no reason and I listen for God or when I wake up because God has spoken clearly to me in a dream. I pray these moments will come more often for me and for all.
Shay,
Thanks for the clarifying remarks. In my post I float back and forth between sleep dreams and visionary dreams without differentiating. I too strongly believe God uses both. We definitely look towards the dreams that we believe we are more cognitively involved in, but God definitely uses our subconscious to communicate real truth to us.
Hey, guys!
Funny about God using dreams– when you wake up, you have no doubt that God has been speaking to you. His handprints are all over the experience or voice you heard, and they don’t fly away from memory the way that some dreams do. However fearsome, awesome, or clarifying, they do “stick”–part of the transformation process??
I really like Shay’s term “thin places.” I used to resent waking up at night and not being able to get back to sleep. That was back in my frenzied life when I was so sleep deprived. Nowadays, I am happy to report that suddenly finding myself awake in the middle of the night has an expectancy to it…what do you want to show me, Lord? I pray, too, for more!
And when you find yourself wide awake in the middle of the night a great response is, “Yes, Lord, your servant is listening.”
I pray we hear and then are willing to be obedient.
Great insight Kathy into the difference in our dreams when they are of God. They don’t leave us, they are haunting almost as they stick in our minds. I find that dreams from God are also frequently recurring. I guess I am slow and God keeps having to hit the rewind button.
Kathy,
I totally agree with how you describe dreams that are from God. I don’t have them very often, but when I do they do stick with you and although I am not always sure of the purpose for awhile it is always an awe giving experience. We are getting ready to have twins and my husband dreamed of them before I was even pregnant (by just a few weeks)