While many Christians believe God can speak through dreams, they consider it to be a rather out-of-the-ordinary experience. They may have felt the Lord lead them through a dream or two here or there over the years. They may have received a very literal dream where Jesus came to them and spoke clearly and gave them new direction for their life.
That is awesome and God definitely does do that. He did it in the Bible, and He certainly continues to do that today.
However, if the dream is obvious, the message is spoken literally, and you understand exactly what it means upon awakening, then you don’t need an interpretation. You comprehend the meaning, nothing is lost in translation. And yes, every once in a while we may be blessed with such night visions.
But what about all the rest of the nights, where our dreams seem strange and unspiritual, and don't seem to make any sense? Does God speak every night, through all those "crazy" dreams, too?
Yes! The only reason we don't understand the dream's message is because it is being communicated in a different language. Dreams are not really that weird or wacky, they are simply speaking another dialect. Dreams use the heart language of pictures, so in order to understand their meaning we just need to learn that language.
A simple example of this is illustrated in the following night vision.
The French Connection
Sometimes God plays with words in our dreams, such as the dream He gave me featuring The Bon-Ton, one of a large chain of department stores in our area. The store carries some of everything so you can always find whatever you need there.
The setting in waking life found my husband and I working on a large project that was too big for us to accomplish on our own. We knew we were pursuing a God-sized dream and we needed Him and His anointing to realize success in the endeavor. Also, at the time we had guests staying in our home, and one of them was originally from France.
That evening, Leo and I prayed together before bed, thanking God for blessing and establishing the work of our hands. Afterwards I fell asleep and had a simple dream. In it, we were enjoying a shopping spree at The Bon-Ton. Then I awoke.
Holy Spirit reminded me of my French lessons from years ago, enabling me to quickly grasp that bon can be translated “good.” Obviously, a ton is a measurement for a huge amount of something. I was thrilled and encouraged by the interpretation and realized all over again that we had nothing to worry about. The dream message was clear: The Lord has a “ton” of “good” things “in store” for us!
Incredibly, God confirmed this later the same day through a conversation with our French friend. I had not shared the dream with her; we were simply chatting about the best place to find organic produce. Imagine my surprise when she just happened to mention that a Whole Foods supermarket was moving into a former Bon-Ton store nearby. Bon-Ton? God used the same symbol twice, in my dream and in waking life, to make sure I got the message.
Want to learn more?
If you have simple dreams, long epic saga dreams, or just crazy, weird and wacky dreams, God is speaking to you. All you need to do is learn how to understand the language He speaks at night.
We teach you how to become fluent in God's picture language through our teaching on Hearing God Through Your Dreams.
For even more training, Christian Leadership University offers the course REN310 Wisdom Through Dream Interpretation through distance learning.
God is speaking. The only question is, are we listening?
Related Resources:
Dream Your Way to WisdomRelated Blogs:
Christian Dream Interpretation
Comments
Dreams
by Anonymous
Hi Charity,
I really enjoy and am blessed to read your blogs about everything, especially about angels and dreams. I have a question though. I dream a lot and I believe God communicates to us through dreams. The trouble is, I don't remember my dreams when I wake up most of the time. So I can't understand them. Also a lot of dreams I dream are troubling dreams when I wake up feeling unhappy and confused. Eg, dreaming that I was going to preach and I could not remember when I was supposed to say, or not finding the church I was supposed to be preaching at. Or dreaming bad things happening to me but not remembering the whole dream, but just waking up feeling disturbed. Are these dreams from God?
Thank you for your help and God bless you.
Naomi (UK)
RE: Dreams
by Charity Kayembe
Hi Naomi! Thank you for writing. It's such a blessing to know you enjoy the blogs!
Those are excellent questions. There are several ways we can improve dream recall, including getting 8 hours of sleep each night, and not waking up to a shrieking alarm clock. I have an alarm that gently gets louder and louder with the sound of ocean waves or rain, and that is much less destructive to our fragile dream memories. Also putting a notebook at your bedside so you can jot down what you remember as soon as you wake up is very helpful. Even if you only remember a fragment of the dream, or the very last scene, God can definitely speak through that!
I'm sorry to hear you've had such troubling dreams, but yes, God is still speaking through those as well. You would want to zero in on the main emotion of your dream: were you frustrated? Or confused? Or feeling lost? What is the key feeling that you experienced in the dream. Then you match that up with waking life. In what area of my waking life am I feeling this way? Since your dreams are about preaching - perhaps you are feeling frustrated in ministry somehow. Perhaps you are confused about the direction the Lord is wanting you to take next (since you didn't know what church to preach at).
If you have these negative feelings in waking life but don't process them with the Lord, then He will give you a dream like this at night to get your attention. He wants to address any frustration or confusion, He wants you to acknowledge the pain so He can touch these things and heal them. Ask the Lord in what area you are unhappy in waking life, and let Him give you His perspective on that person or situation before you go to sleep. If you are able to get into a more peaceful place before you fall asleep, I believe your dreams will in turn reflect those more peace-filled, healed up emotions too.
Sweet dreams, Naomi!
Dreams
by Anonymous
Thank you Charity for even finding time to respond to my questions. Your answer and suggestions are greatly appreciated and they make a lot of sense. I will print it so that I can practice what your have suggested and please do pray for me. God bless you in a very special way.
Naomi
Add new comment