People get nervous when you tell them that God spoke to you in a dream. I get that. There is no way to fact-check a dream. Dreams are purely individual experiences and so their interpretation is utterly subjective. The divide between ‘delusional’ and ‘spiritual’ is a little too hazy to be comfortable for anyone. Even so—God speaks in dreams. There’s a multitude of examples throughout the Bible. As such, we cannot ignore dreams—at least—we should not ignore certain dreams. I had one the other night. A dream so vivid, so unsettling, that I awoke certain of the fact that it was not one of the usual half-forgotten dreams that generally populate the night. This dream made me uneasy because while it seemed to be a spiritual dream, it wasn’t pretty. It was disgusting, actually. It is the only dream in which I can ever remember smelling anything. Visually, too, it was assaulting. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure my theology had totally prepared me for God speaking to me in a dream about horrifying plumbing problems.
It is a good reminder: God isn’t particularly concerned about our notions of propriety.
The dream stayed with me as I went about my morning routine. I didn’t understand it, but I wanted to. As I prayed—asking God if there was something there for me—the meaning of the dream fell into my mind like life-saving supplies air dropped behind enemy lines. God was telling me that I had placed certain hopes in the wrong place of priority in my life and it was making a huge disgusting mess of where I live.
This was a transcendent revelation, but it was not the kind of revelation I was expecting. I wanted an answer as to why my hopes didn’t seem to be coming to fruition and when I might expect a little light on the horizon, so to speak. Instead, God told me I was wrong. My hopes weren’t wrong or sinful, but rather what I had unknowingly done with them. I didn’t mean to let these hopes—represented in my dream as carefully wrapped bundles of white gauze—block the drain and back everything up to the point of contamination. I thought I was doing well. I thought I had everything in order. I thought I was right according to God and everyone.
But I wasn’t.
Here’s the stark reality: It is pride that keeps us from hearing from God. We can call it other things; mask it with the appearance of different problems. Nevertheless, deep down at its root, it is pride that hinders our ability to hear what He is saying. Pride forms the impenetrable earplugs that block out everything but our own assessments. Pride is coming up with alternate explanations to avoid surrendering our plans and judgements to God because it feels like it would be the death of us to do so. Pride doesn’t always look haughty, sometimes it looks perfectly reasonable. Pride doesn’t know it is proud. It just thinks it is right.
“The source of revelation-knowledge is found as you fall down in surrender before the Lord. Don’t expect to see Shekinah-glory until the Lord sees your sincere humility.” (Proverbs 16:33 TPT)
God never lies. He will not participate with you in a fallacy. Whether it is in disordered hopes or a false view of our own importance or insight. He is always speaking exactly what we need to hear. If we aren’t hearing Him, then we know that somewhere pride has gotten in the way. And, perhaps, if you are like me and a subversive pride has so stopped your ears without your being aware of it, the mercy of God might just drop a dream into your head to wake you up.
(A version of this article was published in the March/April 2019 edition of live magazine. Check them out. )
That's a good word.
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