What does it mean to dream? If you look up the dictionaries definition of dreaming they give you two different kinds of dreams: 1) a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person’s mind during sleep;
2) a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal; a yearning, daydreaming, a longing for or setting one’s heart on.
It is amazing how often God spoke to people in the Bible through dreams. Sometimes people had images and scenes played out in their dreams that gave them insight into God’s future for them, or for others. Sometimes angels came to them in their dreams and spoke to them, or revealed things to them. Sometimes it simply says that God spoke to them in a dream, but the point is that dreams are one of the vehicles through which God comes to us and encounters us and speaks to us. One of the classic examples in the Old Testament are the two dreams that Joseph had about God’s future destiny for him, and a classic example in the New Testament is the Lord speaking to the other Joseph. Joseph was given some of the most important revelation anyone has ever been given by God in his dreams. Why does God use things like dreams to speak to us, instead of just speaking to us all the time in an audible voice. He could do that if he wanted to, but he chooses to come to us and speak often in prophecies and visions and dreams. I’m sure there are many reasons, but I believe that one of the reasons God speaks to us through these trans-rational ways is because he wants to remind us and cultivate in us that imagining unreal things, or other worldly things are a part of our DNA. It is a part of our built-in childlikeness to be able to imagine and being childlike is imperative if we are going to explore all the wonders of the kingdom of heaven. God coming to us in dreams as we sleep, I believe, provoke us to dream dreams while we are awake. If you don’t believe in the ideals beyond what your eyes see and your mind can reason, then it is hard to believe in God, for no man has seen God at any time. It is true that Jesus has revealed him, but in speaking to Thomas, Jesus said after Thomas believed after touching the wounds of Christ, “Blessed are those who haven’t seen but who believe.” I also believe that the Joel prophecy that was fulfilled at Pentecost concerning old men dreaming dreams is very strategic, because old men particularly have a tendency to lose the ability to dream for things that aren’t reasonable, or rational, that particularly don’t look like everything they’ve already known. In light of that Joel passage, I believe that the Holy Spirit presence in men as they get older, releases a particular anointing to dream big dreams, and to imagine the unimaginable. In light of that scripture, I also believe that it is a unique work of the enemy when older men who are Christians become cynical, and are afraid to dream.
In Genesis 40:8 Joseph finds himself in prison after spending 11 years as a slave in the house of Potiphar, when Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker have their dream. Joseph notices that their face seems to be saddend and he asked them what is wrong. When they tell him that they had had a dream and there is no one to interpret it, Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell it to me, please.” When Joseph was 17 years old he was given two dreams by God and in those dreams God revealed to Joseph that his destiny was to rule and to be in a place of great authority. After those two dreams everything in Joseph life went in the opposite direction and instead of ruling, he had been a slave and now as a prisoner and yet, his response and eagerness to interpret the cupbearer and baker’s dream tells me, that even though he had experienced much pain and disappointment over the 11 years since his dreams, he had not given up on dreaming. My prayer for me and for others, particularly for men, and specifically for older men, is that no matter how much pain we’ve experienced over the years and how much disappointment we had suffered in light of some of the dreams that we dreamed, we would not quit dreaming. As a matter of fact I pray that my dreams would be bigger than ever and therefore I often imagine what it will look like to manifest the fullness of Christ, exhibited in the Gospels, in my own life. I’m not content with seeing some of the people I pray for get healed; I want to see them all get healed and I’m convinced it can happen. I do want to be content that I’ve had some victory over the power of sin in my life, or that I have loved people at a certain Christlike level; instead, I want to be controlled by the love of Christ and I want to see the righteousness of Jesus radically and completely manifested over the power of sin in my life. God is good and therefore I believe in “happy endings,” even if it takes years and years for the “works together for the good” to reveal itself. I want to keep dreaming about the good, knowing that I will see it one day as all things are summed up in Christ. I don’t want to be practical if practical means lowering my expectations so that I and the people around me won’t get disappointed. I don’t believe that I have hoped for too little, but I do believe that I have at times not hoped for enough. I am in Christ and I have the mind of Christ. What kind of dreams does he have? Those are the ones that I want to hitch my wagon to. I want to dream with Him and in union with Him reimagine the world. Don’t you? Remember, only the expectant give birth to anything..