Just Thinking.........Again

I'm amazed at all the people I've talked to lately that are dreaming or having stranger dreams than normal.  This particularly interests me because I either don't normally dream or don't remember them.  But lately I've been dreaming every night.  Some of them are very strange.

Is God speaking to us in our dreams?  Joseph had a couple dreams that were prophetic.  Nebuchadnezzar had a couple meaningful dreams.  Paul had a dream of the Macedonian man motioning for him to come over.  The bible is loaded with stories of God speaking through people in their dreams.

Let's look at one - Judges 7:13

And when Gideon had come, there was a man telling a dream to his companion. He said, "I have had a dream: To my surprise, a loaf of barley bread tumbled into the camp of Midian; it came to a tent and struck it so that it fell and overturned, and the tent collapsed."

Now If I had a dream of a loaf of bread knocking a tent down, I would most likely laugh it off, tell every one who might get a laugh out of it and blame it on the microwave burrito I ate right before bed. 

But in Judges 7:14 we see:
Then his companion answered and said, "This is nothing else but the sword of Gideon the son of Joash, a man of Israel! Into his hand God has delivered Midian and the whole camp."

Wow!  I wouldn't have come up with that in a million years.  How did this guy come up with this interpretation?  I wouldn't consider the sword of Gideon being like a life of bread.  He could have easily said things like:

The dream is symbolic of your wife's cooking.  It is so bad, you can use a loaf of bread to knock a tent down.

Or maybe……..

We need to build stronger tents if they can be knocked down by a loaf of bread.

This could mean that I'm really bad at dream interpretation or that this guy had other information to work with. 

Part of a dream I had the other night was that I started a new job.  My job was to remove dead bodies from a piece of machinery.  It was one of those dreams that take about 2 days to get out of your head.  I was shocked at seeing the face of one of the bodies and it was an acquaintance from 13 years ago.  I have not seen or heard from him since then.  So should I read something into that? 

There are probably 10 really good life analogies you could draw from this.  If I told you the rest you would come up with some more.  Is this prophetic, sympathetic of a bad day at work, overactive imagination, or something I ate?  The only conclusion I'm concerned about is if God is speaking to me through my dreams.  Am I being warned or told something? 

I found a website that is "Christian dream interpretation".  It's all about 'searching your heart' and 'how do you feel'.  They even suggest playing 'bible pictionary' using your dream.  Well, I'm certain my heart is the one Jeremiah describes as deceitful and wicked.  I don't think my feelings matter if God is trying to speak to me and I don't think God gave us the bible to play 'bible pictionary' with my dreams. 

I have no conclusion other than skepticism.  Some would suggest that I'm severely limited because of it.  That may be true.  I'll be less likely to be led astray, though.  I suggest dreams might, at times, be used to confirm or validate something you already know.  But I don't think God's means of communicating to me is based on my ability to interpret a dream. 

I imagine if God is speaking to us through a dream, we will know it just like any other time He is speaking to us.   

Acts 2:17

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams.

Now, one more dream story.  I was asked, "What do you do if you are bitten by a Zombie?"  Strangely enough, this is a fairly common dream.  The dreams sites say zombies are the uncontrollable and threatening things in life that sometime 'bite' you and sometimes you can avoid.  They even relate the bite marks visible in the hands to the nails driven through the hands of Jesus.  Jesus was pierced for our bad things…….. Yea, I suppose that'll preach, somewhere, some day, but not with me.  That would have to be a candidate for lame sermon illustrations.  

Ecclesiastes 5:7

For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity.

Just thinking & dreaming.

Doug