How Do You Figure Out What God Is Telling You In A Dream?

By Steven C Johnson

It’s the biggest question asked about dreams! Billions of people asked it. They are motivated to know for they read thousands of books and articles endeavoring to help us peer into the mysteries.

It is expressed in different words, but with the same drive:

• How do I know what God is trying to tell me in a dream?
• How can I interpret a real God dream?
• How do I understand the message of a dream from God?

Key Takeaways

• God wants us to understand the dreams He gives us – the same loving God who gives a dream wants us to comprehend the message
• Dreams often contain spiritual metaphors that can be understood through Scripture references (like “stiff neck” appearing 19 times in the Bible)
• Interpreting dreams is a process of discovery – sometimes meanings come instantly, other times through prolonged prayer and pondering
• God often reveals aspects of His character through dreams, showing His patience, care and willingness to help us
• Context matters in dream interpretation – where you are, who is present, and what actions are taking place all provide valuable clues
• A simple and effective interpretation approach is simply asking, “Father, what was that about?” and waiting for His answer

The good news is the same loving God who gives a dream wants us to comprehend the message. You can interpret the meaning of your dream. Sometimes the meaning will come quickly, even instantly. Sometimes the meaning will come with prolonged prayer, pondering, and perhaps insight from others.

A Dream Example: Finding Meaning in Metaphor

Rather than start with a long list of methods, keys and tools for interpretation let’s start with something to practice on. Here comes a dream portion from my revelation journal dated 8/27/2002. It’s short. I suspect you will get this right away.

I was in a worship service sitting in a theater seat. My Dad had been sitting next to me. As the music wound down he stood up and began to massage my neck which was stiff. He gently rotated my head as he massaged. As he was working on me he said, “If you don’t come to me more often I can’t help you.”

Note: I had actually been dealing with a stiff neck in my daily activities.

What do you make of it? Getting the perspective of dream partners can be so helpful, so I would welcome your comments! I’m thinking you have insights I have never considered.

Breaking Down the Dream Interpretation

Here is how I approach the dream. Since the central action in the dream is my Dad massaging my neck I start there.

The problem I’m having is a stiff neck. The solution is my Dad ministering to me, without even being asked, I might add.

You probably saw right away that my Dad, who was a very good man in real life, is a type of the heavenly Father. Jesus encouraged us to call Him Abba – Papa or Daddy.

Understanding Biblical Metaphors

No one wants a physically stiff neck. Is there a metaphor to be found here? What can we find in our Bible about stiff necks? Yikes there are 19 references, and none of them are good.

Perhaps Jeremiah 17:23 is a summary of them all. “Yet they did not listen or pay attention; they were stiff-necked and would not listen or respond to discipline.”

The negative qualities we find in the “stiff-necked” verses include:

• Not listening to the Lord
• Failure to remember God’s goodness and miracles
• Resisting the Holy Spirit and God’s rebukes
• Arrogance and disobedience
• Rebellion, wickedness, sinfulness
• Failure to serve the LORD.

I don’t want a trace of these terrible vices in my life! The stiff-necked practices of the children of Israel kept many of them from entering the promised land! It’s embarrassing and uncomfortable to share this dream with you for I’d like you to think I’m more spiritual than I really am. But it is the right thing to do, because when things are brought into the light they can be dealt with.

1 John 5:7 assures us, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

Discovering God’s Character Through Dreams

The first and greatest question we should ask of any Bible verse, and of any God-dream, is “What does this show me about God?” The comfort in the dream was that my Father was patient and caring, wanting to minister to me, and offering to do it as frequently as I would come to Him!

My Father was not harshly condemning me but helpful, encouraging me to come to Him for help any time.

As we look at the context of the dream we find it to be a worship service. What better place to get into a position for a holy neck massage? Being in perpetual adoration of God may gain us perpetual help!

I was in a theater seat. These are for watching movies. It is encouraging to think that as we come to worship our Father and yield to His loving ministry he will show us things to enrich us on His big screen. When we come to Him more frequently he will project for us things we need to see and hear!

Finding Encouragement, Not Condemnation

My love and devotion for God are real, but not perfect. In this experience I am encouraged, not condemned. I am assured that as I come more frequently to him the stress I create and wear in my neck and shoulders will be worked out by my loving Father! Such good news!

How can we not remember the words of our Savior, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17).

This dream went on. I will only say in the next scene I was leading a horse by its bridle, and the horse willingly followed. This gives me hope that I will have a willing heart and follow the Lord without resisting Him.

An exhortation from Psalm 32:9 says, “Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.”

Practical Application of Dream Interpretation

This is actually a pretty easy dream to interpret, isn’t it. The greater challenge is making consistently wise applications. It requires acting on the invitation of the Father to come more frequently for His help. This requires daily mindfulness and discipline. This dream is 23 years old. I come back to it now and then. I hope I’ve come a little farther in worshipping my Lord and turning to Him for Help over the years, but this dream will continue to remind me not to opt for my smarts, good ideas or strength, but to worship Him and come frequently to Him to iron out the stiffness in my neck.

Today we’ve played with a dream rather than going straight to methods, tools and keys. In this dream we considered:

• The metaphor of seeing God through a natural Father
• Finding help in the place of worship
• The Father’s willingness to minister to us even when we don’t ask
• The Father’s theater seat so we may see and hear what He wishes to tell us on His Big screen
• The comfort that He comes to help and not condemn
• It’s a lifetime lesson and reminder that the more we come to Him the more He will help us.
• And we drew upon the Scriptures to help us understand the elements of this dream.

The Divine Game of “Hide and Seek”

Rarely does a dream come with a preface or addendum saying, “By the way, this is what your dream is all about.” We are engaged in a wonderful game of “Hide and Seek” with our heavenly Father. Our good Father plays the game in such a way that His children are challenged with the task of discovery, but not exasperated with too much difficulty.

Friend when I hear you ask, “How do I figure out what God is telling me in dreams?” I learn things about you.

• You already believe God is real and speaks to you.
• You believe he speaks in many ways, including dreams.
• You desire an understanding heart to gain the full benefits of God-dreams.
• You believe there are ways you can figure out puzzling things
• You have desire to dig in and work to understand God’s messages

Hopefully this little introduction encourages your pursuit of understanding the dreams our Lord gives. In future articles we will look into other useful approaches to dream interpretation. For now let me share my favorite interpretation approach. It is simply asking, “Father, what was that about?” and waiting for His answer!

Kudos to you for being in the hunt and not giving up. Let’s continue next time with more on dream interpretation!

Biblical Example: Joseph the Dream Interpreter

We sense God is trying to say something to us but often just don’t “get it.” This was the case with Pharaoh’s cup bearer and cook in Genesis 40.

“Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them.

After they had been in custody for some time, each of the two men—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison—had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own.

When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so sad today?”

“We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.”

Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.” (Genesis 40:1-8)

The cup bearer and cook had dreams which they couldn’t shake. Translations say they were troubled, disturbed, dejected because they couldn’t figure them out. They wanted help to understand their dreams but finding someone to interpret for them in prison seemed nil.

Now these two were infused in the religion and royal culture of the day. Their go-to was to look to a professional dream interpreter. They were dejected and were probably thinking, “if we were at the royal court we could find a priest, an enchanter, a sorcerer, magician, fortune teller, astrologer or professional psychologist to help us. But here we are in a god-forsaken prison.”

Now, don’t you just love Joseph’s response! “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.” Joseph has a sound bias. If God gives a dream, Who will be best qualified to interpret it? God? Right!

Joseph had some history with the One God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It was a family experience where God spoke and with dreams and interpretations. It doesn’t take too much reading between the lines to see that great grampa Abraham, grampa Isaac and father Jacob all had had experiences with God, and many of them took place in dreams. The family was bound to talk about and ponder these experiences together.

I suspect interpreting dreams, like receiving them, was in the bloodline, if not in repeated family conversation. Earlier in Joseph’s youth before he was sold into slavery to Egypt he had dreams, and no one in the family called for an interpreter!

This is Steve Johnson with RevelationConnections.Vision

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