God Speaks Through Dreams

I’ve been feeling I need to share a bit more about the way God speaks in dreams. For some reason dreams have been something I’ve been reluctant to share. Many years ago, when I first recognized the way God uses dreams to speak to me I had some people that didn’t understand speak very discouragingly. I even had a friend who is a christian call me weird because of the dreams I had. As a result I’ve shied away from being too open about it except for with those that I’m close to. However, its not weird at all that God would speak to us in dreams! It still baffles me that there are still Christians who believe God won’t use dreams to speak to us. I want to ask them “Do you read your Bible?” It’s all over scripture!

I digress.

My history with dreams

God has spoken to me through dreams throughout my life and continues to do so. I remember my dreams most nights and sometimes multiple dreams in a night. I spend time with them praying into them and interpreting them. They become part of my daily conversation with the Lord. Sometimes they’re quite literal but most often they are metaphorical. There are times that I get the interpretation right away and other times that its revealed later. Sometimes I get encouraging messages that I realize I’m to share with someone else. Sometimes He gives me a specific strategy for something I’m dealing with or a warning about something that is about to happen (Maybe I’ll write more about this in the future). This has been a process of years of recognizing patterns in the way God speaks to me and taking risks with what He shares. I haven’t always done it perfectly.

God will speak to you in dreams if you pay attention and allow the Holy Spirit to show you what they mean. If you don’t value the messages He gives you in dreams, He will choose to get your attention another way. It’s super encouraging to hear from God in dreams because they are so personal and will speak specifically to issues you might be facing. When I first discovered that God was speaking to me through dreams, it was during a season of great difficulty where I was in a place of despair. My dreams became a lifeline in darkness because I would receive very clear, specific direction that sometimes would even contradict the advice I was receiving in real life from well meaning friends. I was so glad I followed the direction I received because I would have made some detrimental mistakes if I hadn’t listened.

Going through opposition

I want to share a recent story about just how personal God can speak to you. In the month of March I went through a season of many challenges. I had just made the decision to step into something the Lord has been asking me to do and suddenly much opposition followed. It seemed every couple days was an issue I had to deal with that I couldn’t ignore. 

A message through a friend

One day a friend of mine gave me a journal that she had bought for me. On the cover was the word “travel” and it had a compass and airplanes on it. It came with a little notebook that said “adventure journal”. It had a personal application for me based on some things God had been putting in my spirit. She said to me that she felt she was supposed to tell me to “Keep True North”. She asked me if that meant anything to me. I explained to her that in 2018 I heard the Lord speak to my spirit while I was at a retreat “I’m your True North.” That was during a difficult season that I wrote a bit more about here: https://nicoledelaney.com/2023/02/16/letting-go/

I have held onto that word especially when going through a wilderness season. That’s why at the top of my blog is a compass with only the north direction on it. It has personal meaning for me.

The next day that same friend told me that she felt to remind me to keep my eyes on the Lord because the enemy was going to try to distract me with all kinds of things to stop me from moving forward. 

Going on an adventure in a dream

That night on March 25th I had a dream that I titled “Going on an adventure”. The dream was about being invited to take an adventure that involved two kinds of activities. It was a combination of what looked to be windsurfing and parasailing. It was exciting but in the dream I was apprehensive but I knew I was to take the journey. Someone, who wasn’t visible in the dream was trying to dissuade me from taking this adventure by telling me I could get hurt. I was telling them “I have to do this. I can’t let fear stop me.” In real life I had been battling fear around doing what God was asking me to do but I knew this dream was showing me that I was being guided by the Holy Spirit and not to let fear stop me from being obedient.

Feeling overwhelmed

A couple of days later I woke up to a messy situation that I had to address that involved one of my dogs getting sick. I went out that day to run errands to buy the things I needed to help my dog get better and while I was out my husband reached out to let me know that he came out to his car at work and the back window was smashed. That day I was feeling rather overwhelmed. We had been dealing with so many external issues the previous couple weeks that required constant attention. As soon as we were addressing one situation another thing would happen. As I was driving down the road praying aloud about these situations I stopped at a red light and to my left in front of me was a jeep with a tire cover that had a compass pointing north. God was reminding me to “keep true north”. I snapped a picture in amazement at what I was seeing. Then I saw the message on the tire that said “Adventures begin here”. I couldn’t help but think of the dream I had and also the notebook my friend gave me a few days earlier. 

Taking a closer look

Later that day, I was sharing with a friend about the Jeep that I saw. I pulled the photo of the Jeep up and looked at it again. That’s when I noticed the license plate with a surfboard on it….just like in my dream. What’s even more amazing was that the expiration date on the tag was 3-25. The dream I had about the adventure was on March 25th. To be fair there are other license plates where I live that have surfboards on them. However, there’s no way that all of those specific things combined could be a coincidence. Do you see how specific and personal God can be?!

Value the Messages You Receive

He’s so faithful to speak to us through Holy Spirit when we need to hear from Him. He loves you and He will go to great lengths to encourage you. Dreams are one way to get your attention when your mind is quiet and your not distracted by other things. We often are so busy that we don’t recognize when He’s speaking to us. If you’re hearing from the Lord as you read scripture or in prayer that’s amazing! Just please don’t fail to recognize Holy Spirit’s whispers or the messages He’s sending to you throughout the day or in your sleep also.

I encourage you to write your dreams down even if you don’t understand them right now. As you value dreams more will be given to you. You can also type them out if you prefer. I keep one master dream document on my computer so I can recognize patterns, find similar dreams or search by date. When you value what He says and don’t box Him in, there are no limits to how He will speak to you.

If you’d like a great free resource to understand biblically the way God speaks through dreams, I highly recommend John Redenbo’s Dreams Through the Bible course. It’s amazing what you’ll notice as you examine every example of God speaking through a dream in scripture. You can find that playlist here:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTnoRvFTRlXwzGvxonNonZMellBhl8SHW&si=paDG0ptWdZ4iZoMn