Dream Misinterpretation

DREAM INTERPRETATION AND THE PROPHETIC

Are you still struggling with my statement at the end of the last lesson? I said:

Maybe the reason that the prophetic community is struggling so much with dream interpretation is because that is not something we are supposed to be focusing on. Maybe it is not really a significant part of the prophetic.

Let me clarify that a little. I did not say that the prophetic should never touch on dream interpretation. What I said is that dream interpretation should not be a major focus of the prophetic. There will be times when God speaks to people symbolically through dreams and they are not able to figure the meaning out for themselves. There will be times when God sends a prophetic person to interpret the dream for them.

We saw this in the lives of Joseph and Daniel. Joseph interpreted dreams for two of his fellow inmates in prison. He also interpreted dreams for a top government official. Likewise, Daniel interpreted dreams for top government leaders. The Bible makes it clear that, at times, God will call on one of His prophets to interpret dreams.

Daniel summed it up nicely when he said, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain ... the mystery [of the dream that] he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries" (Daniel 2:27-28). Then Daniel added, "The great God has shown ... what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy" (Daniel 2:45b). There are definitely times when God speaks through dreams and uses a prophet to interpret them. Dream interpretation is a valid part of the prophetic, and must be honored as such.

But dream interpretation is not a common part of the prophetic. Most of the prophets in the Bible are not recorded as interpreting even one single dream for another person. Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest of all the prophets that preceded Him (Luke 7:28), yet John is not recorded interpreting any dreams. And what about Jesus? Did He interpret dreams for anyone? Most of us would consider Jesus the greatest prophet that ever walked the face of the earth (see Luke 17:6). Jesus did a lot of prophetic things: He gave detailed and accurate words of knowledge, He spoke for God the Father, He even spoke God's life into people to the point of raising the dead with His spoken word, etc. But the Bible does not record Jesus as interpreting one single dream.

Dream interpretation seems to be a small and specialized area of the prophetic. It is not a common aspect of ministry that many prophets should be doing. God will raise up and appoint some people to interpret dreams, and these people need to be respected as true prophets of God. However, they are a small minority of the prophetic community, and a small portion of the overall prophetic ministry.

Some of the prophetic activities today seem to be out of balance with what we see in the Bible. This is particularly true of dream interpretation. An amazing number of "prophetic dream interpretation" ministries have sprung up. When I did a search for "prophetic dream interpretation" on google, it found 76,400 different web pages on that subject. There are some major prophetic ministries have whole large staffs that travel around the world holding seminars to teach believers how to interpret dreams. Dream interpretation seems to be a popular fad that is sweeping through the church right now.

Different prophetic "fads" seem to come and go throughout church history. For example, about ten years ago the "fad" was making prophetic predictions about upcoming events similar to the type that psychic Jeannie Dixon made. But we don't want to be driven by flesh desires or by what is popular, we want to be driven only by what God's Spirit is doing. Jesus said, in John 5:19, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner."

In John 14:12, Jesus also said, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father" (John 14:12). So our mandate is to do the things that Jesus did. Jesus healed the sick and cast out demons and did miracles and spoke the words of God, including supernatural revelation and words of knowledge. He wants us to do the same things that He did, so we should focus on those things. Jesus did not go around interpreting dreams; the Bible does not record Him doing that even once. Since that was not a major focus of Jesus' prophetic ministry, it should not be a major focus of the modern church's prophetic ministry either.

Things are way out of balance right now. As the New Testament church, we tend to put a large focus on one of the more minor aspects of the prophetic. It is time to refocus and begin to emphasize the prophetic things that God deems as the most important.

HEARING GOD FOR OURSELVES

Do you recall my frustration (from lesson 1) when I tried to get my three dreams interpreted. I suspect that you may have faced a similar frustration with one of your own dreams at some point in your life. The fact is that, from time to time, we do have dreams that we are convinced are from God and that are hard for us to understand. Since so many of us have this experience, this almost sounds like an argument for increasing the focus on dream interpretation ministry instead of decreasing it. But it is not.

You see, if God gave you a dream, then He obviously wants to speak to you. He doesn't want you to go to some third party to have them talk to Him on your behalf and report back what He wanted to say to you. He wants to talk to you directly and more clearly. He wants to teach you to recognize His voice more clearly.

If God gives you something in the form of a puzzle or riddle, that is because He wants you to press into Him to get a better understanding of what He is saying. He is not trying to push you away from Him and send you to someone else, He is trying to entice you to draw closer to Him.

Jesus said in John 10:27, "My sheep hear My voice." If you are a born-again Christian, then Jesus has put within you the ability to hear His voice. He wants to speak directly to you. Hearing God may seem difficult and confusing at first, but at one time it was also hard and confusing for you to speak your own native language. You had to learn to understand your language and what various words and voice intonations meant. But God created you with an innate ability to learn that. Likewise, you have to learn to recognize His voice when He speaks to you. But He has already put the ability to learn that within you. He has promised in James 1:5 that He will give us wisdom when we seek Him for it. God will teach us how to recognize clearly when He speaks to us.

He uses dreams to entice some of us to press in and hear God for ourselves. We get a dream and we don't understand it, so we press into Him and ask Him about it, and over time He explains it to us. If we can't hear Him clearly, He will drop hints that we can't miss, that help steer us to hearing Him and understanding what He is saying to us in our dream. God will lead us to a certain portion of Scripture that gives us some insights on our dream. Or He will bring certain coincidences or events into our life to help us understand the dream, and He will call our attention to certain things. He will make Himself heard as we look to Him and press into Him.

Most of us are so unsure of our own hearing that we don't trust God to communicate clearly to us. That is why we run to someone else for an interpretation instead of trying to hear God for ourselves. But the good news is that God's ability to communicate is greater than our ability to get it wrong or to misunderstand. The same One who gave you the dream will take responsibility to communicate it's meaning to you as you press into Him and ask Him. Sometimes He uses symbolic dreams to invite us to draw closer to Him and seek Him. He wants to accomplish two things with that. First, He wants you to press more deeply into Him, to be closer to Him and in greater intimacy with Him. Second, He wants to speak to you more clearly, to teach you how to recognize His voice more accurately.

Next time you get a spiritual dream that you don't understand, why don't you treat it like a treasure map and go on a treasure hunt. Begin to press into God for clues to understand the dream. He will give them to you and eventually lead you to the treasure (a full understanding of what He was saying to you in the dream).