Awake or asleep, God can speak to us

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/020820.cfm
1 Kings 3:4-13
Mark 6:30-34

Dreams cannot be the most reliable means for making plans. If I were to follow the directives of my dreams, I would live a life of foolhardy errands revisiting the places where I’d spent the previous day, all for naught. Nothing would ever get accomplished, no destinations arrived at, and weird conversations would repeat over and over again.

That’s just me, of course. Your dreams may be silky smooth and beautiful and awe inspiring. The probability of that would be zero, but we must leave open the chance for that rare individual. 

However, there can be a dream that breaks the muddled mold. We can experience one dream of clarity every now and again. In it is God’s voice. Such a dream stands out because it is not like any other sleepy experience.

Young Solomon — projected in Steve’s talk this week as an innocent teenager with a mature awareness of his inabilities — recounts a visit by God in his dream. Some important things must be noted about this kind of experience. Especially if we consider the inefficient, actually chaotic activities and jumbled mental state we struggle to organize when recalling our own dreams.

I refer to Jung about three important things to remember in dreams, things that particularly struck me.

First, all the characters in our dream are probably variations of us. The theatrical stage of our sleep characters is populated with different renditions of ourselves. That’s totally weird. Second, the complex analysis of our dream scape — where we are, who we’re with, and what we’re doing — are beyond even the brightest of persons. Worse, the expert we hire to interpret for us has a low chance of success. For instance, stuff like dissociation and symbolisms take lots of time to decipher, and are probably morbidly wrong anyway. Third, God is surely involved in our dreams, so the best follow up to a significant dream is probably to recognize what we know to be true. Our dreams can warn us, and prompt us to do something. That something is likely confession or correction, though, rather than being delivered the cure for cancer or giving us tips on whom we should marry. Our dreams are about us, and in God’s presence he would speak about our relationship to him.

Consequently, here we have Solomon in 1 Kings recording a complete conversation between him and God in a dream.

In Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream at night.
God said, “Ask something of me and I will give it to you.”

The distinction between that clarity of God’s voice for Solomon and what most of us experience in our sub-conscious blathers about pieces of toast, hidden keys, and a bunch of other nonsense which I struggle to remember the next day, is stark. 

I remember only a rumbling of disconnected tidbits, and Solomon remembers God’s clear voice. The truth of Solomon’s scripted narrative lies in its placement — scripture. Those of us who take scripture seriously regard literary representations as important, like parables, poetry, proverbs, and apocalyptic writings. Letters from prophets and recorded conversations invoked by God (like Solomon in his dream) stand up by themselves. These verses make claims that believers recognize as God’s voice.

The most interesting part of the dream where Solomon’s hears God is the sheer wild nature of the dream state. Instead of misty memories, Solomon has a conversation etched into his mind, and a certainty that God is not just with him, but actively engaged in his life. The dream state is where God chose to get Solomon’s attention. He, too, was open to that possibility.

Support for Solomon’s sleep encounter comes from many other Old Testament sources. Saul fretted to Samuel that he no longer heard from God, “either by prophets or by dreams.”  We can surely conclude that before then he did hear from God.

In Acts 2:17, Peter quotes the prophet Joel, who wrote, “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.”

So, while being cautious in the review of our dreams, as Jung advises, we know that God can speak to us there. Can we prepare for it? The readiness to hear God allows for God to speak when and wherever he wishes. The preparation is simply to be ready. Solomon recognized God’s voice, and in his plea for help to administrate a budding empire, he listened for it.

The voice of God has a purpose for us. As Peter continues in his speech in Acts, he quotes David who explains that purpose. “You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.”

The Holy Spirit, our Comforter, whispers to us in the manner he chooses to get our attention. Our every step in our waking life is joined by God. In that journey he makes known to us the paths of life. How well do we practice that walk with God?

The experience of God, when recognized, further attracts us to listen. “You will fill me with joy in your presence.”

I’m not going to presume to know when God would speak to us in our dreams. I am only aligning the reality that God is with us always, and we should include his presence also in our dream state. 

I believe Solomon, Joel, Saul, and Peter properly understood that God could and would use dreams to whisper to us. When we’re conscious of how God uses us in our waking moments, we enter a joyful state. In our unconscious dreamworld God can surely extend that same joyful presence.