Truth in bad dreams?

 

My nighttime dreams are vivid and often humorous. Yet sometimes they are dark and confusing, even seeming like attempts to divert me from trusting the Lord. Last night, my dreams were filled with selfish actions, several odd funerals, and the confusion of being lost in a building and not able to find what I was looking for. I woke up feeling numb and distracted.

Christians who are filled with God’s Spirit feel love, joy and peace, so instead of dwelling on the dream and trying to rewrite it to make sense, I began saying and singing the truth about Jesus and what He has done for me. After that, I read this, the first line in my devotional book: “Our liberty must come from an understanding of the mind and thoughts of God toward us.”

The author continued to focus on who I am in Jesus and what He has called me to be. I am not in bondage to the dictates of my old life, nor the ‘rules’ of being a servant, nor the power of dreams. I am a child of God and being transformed into the image of Christ. The Bible tells me that as I live and walk in the Spirit, “against such there is no law” (Galatians 5:23). This means putting away all rules driven by self-effort and trusting the Lord to make of me what He wants of me. I’m to confess known sin and humbly recognize that just as I could not save myself, I also cannot be sanctified and set myself apart to serve Him alone, not even in my dreams.

However, as I follow Jesus and see amazing answers to prayer and am excited about His work in me and in others, the conflict begins. I’m not to trust the world’s ideas, nor the lies of Satan, but I’m also not to trust myself. Those dreams hit me with, “If you had a real faith, you would not have dreams like that.”

However, Jesus is my Savior from every sin, and every weakness, even from an imperfect faith, and I can do nothing else but trust it all to Him. For example, I’m learning more about prayer for others. A major lesson is to leave out my personal ideas of what is needed and start telling God what to do. As one writer says, my approach to God is possible because of what Jesus did, not about what I think:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. (Hebrews 10:19–22)

Walking in faith means praying in faith, but if my faith is in my I-wants or my I-thinks, then I my faith is in myself and not in the wisdom or the power of God — the kind of praying that the Lord answers, the kind of praying that comes from experiencing my own weakness and from having awful dreams that show me how useless and foolish I am at the core of my being.

PRAY: This is Your Word for me today, Lord. I must trust You like a lost and confused child in utter ignorance, weakness, foolishness, and blindness with nothing that I can do but throw myself on You to meet the needs You place before me. You are the Savior of the lost, and I am lost without you. Keep me trusting you moment by moment! As the devotional writer says, if I look at my feelings, or at my experiences, and at what seem to be the practical results of my trusting, I could despair. But when I look only at You and Your faithfulness to lead me — in darkness or in light because Your blood was shed to redeem me and it is sufficient to cleanse and sanctify even me. Help me remember that effective intercession means substituting my ideas with Your desires for our godliness. It is so easy to pray in sympathy for human discomfort than praying for Your will to be done — in my own life and in the lives of others. Thank You for revealing truth even in bad dreams.