Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God. (Ecclesiastes 5:7 NIV)
Do you have dreams?
There are different types of dreams. You may have wishes, goals, hopes, plans that are “dreams” of your life. You may have dreams – good or bad – that visit you as you sleep or as you daydream. You may have messages from God that come as you dream. Throughout scripture God speaks in dreams to people like both Jacob’s son Joseph and Mary’s husband Joseph. The prophet Joel promises dreams and visions to those on which the Holy Spirit is poured out:
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions. (Joel 2:28 NIV)
God certainly can guide our lives, through our thoughts and dreams. He even tells us, “Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4 NIV) When we focus on God first, he plants within us the godly desires that he can help us realize and achieve.
Our culture believes that if you have the right amount of courage, work, and luck you will achieve your dreams.
“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney
“A dream doesn’t become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work.” – Colin Powell
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
But what if achieving all our “dreams” isn’t really the best thing for us? After all, some of our night dreams are awful and frightening. And some “dreams” have turned out to be completely horrific in their destructive results, like Hitler’s dream for a country based on a master race, or the dream to complete an atomic bomb. Even without these severe examples, you’ve probably had dreams that you are glad have not come true – of violence done to another person or to you, of a flirting or affair with someone not your spouse, of an evil plot or plan, for example.
In C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, the book “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” tells the story of a ship and crew that went to explore the world. In one scene, they enter a place of deep and utter darkness, where they heard “a cry, either of some inhuman voice or else a voice of one in such extremity of terror that he had almost lost his humanity.” They find the man who begs,
“Mercy! Mercy! Even if you are only one more dream, have mercy. Take me on board. Take me, even if you strike me dead. But in the name of all mercies do not fade away and leave me in this horrible land.“
They don’t understand why he is so fearful until he explains what this darkness surrounds.
“This is the Island where Dreams come true.”
“That’s the island I’ve been looking for this long time,” said one of the sailors. “I reckon I’d find I was married to Nancy if we landed here.”
“And I’d find Tom alive again,” said another.
“Fools!” said the man, stamping his foot with rage. “That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I’d better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams–dreams, do you understand–come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.”
There was about half a minute’s silence and then, with a great clatter of armor, the whole crew were tumbling down the main hatch as quick as they could and flinging themselves on the oars to row as they had never rowed before; and Drinian was swinging round the tiller, and the boatswain was giving out the quickest stroke that had ever been heard at sea.”
Today, let us remember to focus on the dreams GOD gives us. May we be aware of and receptive to the messages he gives us in dreams. May we not chase the “dreams” of the world, of our flesh, or of our enemy. May our hopes and dreams be lined up completely with God’s purposes and plans for our future with hope.
God,
Thank you for the many ways in which you communicate with us. Today we pray especially that your Spirit would be poured out upon us and we would dream the dreams you have for us – both in our night states and in our vision-casting parts of life. Help us reject the voices of our enemy or our flesh, and instead seek out your good purposes and plans for our future with hope, we ask in Jesus’s name, AMEN.
I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and prayto me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:11-13 NIV)