As I walk deeper and deeper in my relationship with Jesus, I am more and more awed by the God that we serve and the incredibly surreal and supernatural things we get to enjoy as His sons and daughters. One of the ways God has been speaking to me over the past two years has been through dreams. When I was in middle school I remember being fascinated with the night-time visions. I wanted to know all about them, and I remember the particular intrigue and deep knowing that dreams were more than just a scientific phenomena (scientists don’t really understand why we dream). One time, I checked a book out of the library, “Dreams for Dummies”. I read it a bit, but I was so young and didn’t understand that dreams could be a language from God. Over the years I kept a dream journal every once in a while, but it was never consistent.
It wasn’t until I read a book while I was in the School of Supernatural Ministry a few years ago that my interest was peaked again concerning dreams as a means of communication from God. I read a short little paragraph about dreams and decided to ask Papa God if he’d give me a dream that night. He did! From then on, it was a major explosion of dreams! My “dream inbox” was so stuffed… it was overwhelming. I’d wake up in the morning and while in a sleepy-stupor try to type on my phone all I could remember about my dreams. For a stretch of about three months, I would dream every single night and have a new dream I’d write out.
After a few weeks of getting dream after dream, I told God… you’re going to have to teach me how to interpret these things! What use are these dreams if I don’t understand them? He began to show me some things that are important to dream interpretation. 1.) Dreams are more often than not, symbolic. I believe that there are certainly future-telling dreams. I have not had one myself, but I will know it when I do… God doesn’t want to speak so secretly to us that we miss it altogether, especially when we are actively looking. Mostly, dreams are symbolic and it takes prayer, intuition, and a bit of study to find a dream’s meaning! 2.) Dreams may have elements that are particularly personal to the dreamer. One person’s dream about, say, a swingset may mean something entirely different from one person to another. For me, maybe I had an impacting, emotional experience on a swingset, while to another person… it’s just a swing set and the symbolism is more generic. God may use symbolism in dreams that are highly personal to the dreamer. Another example, someone who loves snakes and has pet snakes may have different symbolism attached to the appearance of a snake in their dream than say… me, who loathes snakes. 3.) Just like any other word that we receive supernaturally, we have to test it biblically. Not every dream that we have is the voice of God. Some dreams are because of what we exposed ourselves to through the day. Other dreams are from God. And some dreams are demonic. So, it’s important to compare and weigh dreams against the word.
I’d literally have a list of about 5-6 dreams a night during that time. I still haven’t gone back to look into some of those dreams to see which ones I can pull meaning from. Some of them, I believe, are not meaningful messages from God at all, so I let them go. Others require some attention.
At one point I became so overwhelmed with all of my dreams I stopped recording them… When I did, I stopped having dreams. That freaked me out, and I was strongly convicted. I had asked God for a gift. He gave it to me and I was not using it. I repented and told God I’d write down every dream I have that I can remember. He gave them back to me! So, I recorded them, even when I woke up feeling ridiculously tired and couldn’t see the worth in writing down a dream I didn’t immediately see the interpretation for.
Over the past few months especially, God has been speaking to me more clearly than ever before in my dreams. The interpretations match my current situations or are words that my heart needs to hear at that time. As I have stewarded this gift, it has become stronger and stronger. As I’m sitting here typing this I’m thinking to myself, “What kind of fairytale land is this?!” The Kingdom of God is INCREDIBLE! WOW!
I posted on Facebook about a dream that I had this past week. I was strongly impacted by it’s meaning… and by the immediacy of it’s coming when I was in need.
Today, the enemy has been on my case trying to get me to believe some lies. I took a nap because I was tired and was feeling over emotional. Before I laid down I was talking to Jesus and He showed me that I really didn’t have to carry ANY of what I was feeling.
Then, I had a dream. In the dream, I was in a building/store and the phone rang. I picked it up and it was a creepy person. I peeked out the window and could see the person was in a truck outside. As they spoke to me on the phone I could see his lips moving and I was able to identify him as the caller. It woke me up from my nap as my entire chest throbbed with fear.
Jesus began to show me what the dream meant! In the dream, it was scary to know how close the unidentified caller was. But, the reality is that he wasn’t in the building with me. The door was locked and I was secure inside. I had no reason to fear. I could trust the shelter I was in! This is the picture of the enemy when he comes at us when we are abiding in God! I was not forced to listen to the enemy’s voice on the phone. I could hang up! The enemy is NOT in our shelter with us. He DOESN’T have authority on our or God’s property. We can hang up the phone when he begins to speak to us… and we can also tell him to get off of our property!
Psalm 91:1 “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty!”
I actually didn’t even have to write this dream down, God gave me the interpretation almost immediately. I am still in awe of the quick response God gave me in that when I was laying down, my heart was hurting. He speaks such encouragement to His children!
Dreaming is not a gift of yore, it’s a gift for today! If you want dreams, just ask Him for them! That’s what I did… and I got dreams! Be prepared, though, that if you ask for dreams, and you want to grow in the gift, you have to use it.
If you have dreams, and don’t know how to interpret them, or would like help interpreting them… let me know! I LOVE to you help interpret dreams. Send them on over! tallen@exnm.org
