Dreams for Guidance

God speaks to us through dreams and visions of the night

SPOILER ALERT: I’m not actually sitting here on Wednesday morning pushing the submit button. I work on the weekly pieces ahead of time and program them to publish on Wednesday mornings. Ideally I have a few weeks planned out, but sometimes life gets busy and I scramble on a Monday or Tuesday to get something on the screen. Currently I’m in a scrambling mode, but optimistic that since I finished teaching summer school a few days ago, I’ll be able to get ahead again.

So, I was working on this week’s piece on Sunday and my message was getting rather lengthy and lost in tangents. Initially I was planning to write a reflection about Charity and then write a series on Prayer. I went to bed wondering if I should split up the lengthy Charity piece and make it a series first and then a Prayer series. Then, shortly before I woke up, I had a dream.

Recently I’ve written about different responses when I feel God guiding me when I’m awake. Sometimes I listen and go with the directions - even if it hijacks my own mortal plans for the day; sometimes I try my own thing and wind up with a proverbial “I told you so” from God. But I don’t think I’ve written much about dreams. Not everyone remembers their dreams, but I do. And God definitely provides guidance through my dreams.

I’m sure I’ve said that I’m not much for memorizing scripture. Of course, I know the basics: John 3:16 and…um…okay, maybe that’s the only basic that I can quote chapter and verse. I know there is a Psalm that says “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, he leads me through green pastures, etc.” but honestly, I thought it was Psalm 31 and I went to check right now and it is 23. Regardless of the number, I know the message - and I think that’s a little more important.

For almost 40 years, I’ve carried one verse in my memory regarding dreams. I remember sitting on the edge of my bed when I was 16 (my mom moved every year and it is definitely my 16-year-old house that I remember) and reading “God speaks to you in dreams and visions of the night”. I even remember repeating chapter and verse numbers so I would memorize them, but apparently it didn’t stick. (I just looked it up on bible.com.)

Job 33

1“But now, Job, listen to my words;

pay attention to everything I say.

2I am about to open my mouth;

my words are on the tip of my tongue.

3My words come from an upright heart;

my lips sincerely speak what I know.

4The Spirit of God has made me;

the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

5Answer me then, if you can;

stand up and argue your case before me.

6I am the same as you in God’s sight;

I too am a piece of clay.

7No fear of me should alarm you,

nor should my hand be heavy on you.

8“But you have said in my hearing—

I heard the very words—

9‘I am pure, I have done no wrong;

I am clean and free from sin.

10Yet God has found fault with me;

he considers me his enemy.

11He fastens my feet in shackles;

he keeps close watch on all my paths.’

12“But I tell you, in this you are not right,

for God is greater than any mortal.

13Why do you complain to him

that he responds to no one’s words?

14For God does speak—now one way, now another—

though no one perceives it.

15In a dream, in a vision of the night,

when deep sleep falls on people

as they slumber in their beds,

16he may speak in their ears

and terrify them with warnings,

17to turn them from wrongdoing

and keep them from pride,

18to preserve them from the pit,

their lives from perishing by the sword.

(Change in font is my addition for emphasis.) I must have had a significant dream that led me to focus on this verse, but I don’t remember it specifically. This was also around the time that my church choir did a summer tour of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”. To this day it remains one of my absolute favorite stories, particularly because of the idea of interpreting dreams. I’m no Joseph, but over the years I’ve read enough and analyzed my own experiences that I feel I have a basic understanding of dream interpretation.

• About a week before my host-father died suddenly in Brazil, I dreamt of a close friend in Brazil. We were in an airport and I was very sad that they were leaving. The feeling of loss stayed with me all week and I even arranged to have a phone call with my friend because of my concern. A few hours before the phone call occurred, I got the news about my dad. Subsequently I learned that God often uses a messenger we trust to communicate difficult news. So it really wasn’t about my friend, they were just a trusted messenger to deliver the news that someone was leaving my life.

• There was a time in the early 2000’s when I “tele-commuted” three days a week. I was only in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I had no knowledge that two of my co-workers made plans on Friday to go mountain biking on the weekend. On Sunday night, I dreamed that my entire workgroup was out to lunch. I noticed that one specific person was not using their left arm. Imagine my surprise when I returned to the office on Tuesday and learned that the specific person had a biking accident and dislocated their shoulder and, yes, it was the left shoulder. I couldn’t have prevented the accident, but because of the dream I felt connected and did my best to cheer them up during the long recovery.

• I dreamed of my host-mom wearing flowing white satin and laying on a round bed also covered in white satin. It all had a very angelic feeling. (This was over 20 years after my host-dad had died so by now I knew this wasn’t necessarily about my mom, but just in case I told my family to keep an eye on her.) My mother-in-law always reminded me a bit of my host-mom. So, later that morning, when I overheard my husband talking to his mom, I tuned in. Based on what I heard, I interrupted him and asked what was going on. He reported that she wasn’t feeling well and was asking whether she should go to the doctor or the ER. I insisted she needed to take this seriously and go straight to the ER. Thankfully, she did. It turned out to be a heart issue and she wound up getting a pacemaker that allowed us to enjoy a few more years with her.

So, last night I had a dream about pasta. I was in an apartment that had a strong sense of community. I was preparing a large spaghetti dish, but with clear noodles (like Thai glass noodles). There were people helping me and everywhere I looked were pots and bins of noodles that we needed to mix together. I needed to get more stuff so I asked a lady (a friend in real life whom I think of as a strong, capable woman) to continue the mixing. When I returned, I discovered that she had taken a hand mixer to the batch of pasta and it was now as smooth as mashed potatoes.

The message I take from this dream is: The mixing was overwhelming and getting very complicated - I needed to smooth things out, keep them simple.

So, there you go, I’m listening to God’s guidance and next week we will start a series on Charity.

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