I Had a Dream...Was It From God?

Are dreams from God? In this episode, I share some of my own personal dreams and the symbolic details in them. I give examples of how I interpret their meanings, drawing on Biblical resources, prayer, and discernment.  I believe God still uses dreams to communicate with us, and I hope that after listening to this episode, you will be inspired to pay attention to your own dream life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Well, here we are again. Welcome back to the Dissatisfied Podcast. I appreciate you listening. I am Rochelle Smith, and I hope you had a good Easter. We're just a few days past Easter, and we had a gorgeous day up here where I live, and we spent some time at my mom's house, had some family from Jacksonville come up, and it was just a really nice time. And I tell you what, as I've gotten older, you know, as times and seasons have changed, and we've seen our parents get older, I just have come to appreciate the time that I get to spend with my family more than I used to. I think when you're young, you just don't think of it. You know, maybe you take it for granted a little bit when you're young. But as you get older, it changes. And you know the saying, time goes by too fast? I realize now that's an understatement. A total understatement. Yes, time goes by real fast to the point where you think, where did my 30s go? Where did my 40s go? I mean, my friend Amy, that I've known since I was five years old, she's a grandma now. I'm gonna be a mother-in-law in like two weeks. And I'm thinking, wait a second, aren't we still in our 30s? How did this happen? So, yes, life moves fast. But there is so much to be thankful for. And I'm trying to focus on the things to be thankful for because I'll tell you what, this life has a way of causing us to focus on the negative. Don't you agree with that? I mean, the news, what's happening in our world, social media tends to just bring our focus to all the negative that's happening. But there's so much to thank God for, and I want to read a couple of these verses. So in 1 Thessalonians 5.18, it says, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. So it's God's will that we give thanks in all circumstances. That means the good and the bad. That's kind of a hard one to wrap our mind around, I know. Colossians 3 17 says, and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And there's many more verses about thankfulness. You could just Google that. But I think why is God making this so obvious in Scripture for us to be thankful? And I think it's more than likely because it holds some sort of supernatural power. It's a gateway for something, a gateway for breakthrough, a gateway to rise above the noise, a gateway to step into peace in hard circumstances. There's a reason God is saying that it's his will for us to give thanks. One thing I'm thankful for, very thankful for, is the Bible, the word of God. Because for me it's a lifeline. And I think for everyone it's a lifeline, but many of us don't use it enough. There's some that don't use it at all. And that's one of the primary ways that God speaks to us is through his word. It's very important as Christians to read his word. But I do believe that he speaks in other ways. And, you know, I'm one of those people that I'm always talking to God. And one of the things that I constantly say to him is I say, God, I want to hear your voice. I want to see your face. Give me signs, give me visions, give me dreams. I'm always saying that stuff to him, to the point where I annoy myself. But thank God he, I don't think he gets annoyed. He wants us to ask for those things. But I know that he speaks in other ways. And one of those ways is dreams, which we're going to talk about here in a minute. But don't you wish that you could hear God's voice? For real, hear his voice unquestionably, that there would be no doubt that it was him. But unfortunately, the the times we live in, you know, these days that we live in, it's not common for him to speak with his audible voice. But I actually do know somebody who heard the audible voice of God, and she was radically saved because of it. And this was a woman who she was living the good life, very high up in the corporate world, making tons of money. She did not know the Lord, she was not a believer, but God spoke to her audibly, and that encounter changed her immediately. And she ended up leaving the corporate world, and she and her husband have led a church for 20 years in Texas. So talk about a complete turnover, a complete life change, she had it. But I thought, man, I want to hear the audible voice of God. But most of us won't. Most of us will not hear his audible voice on the side of heaven, and that's okay. But that doesn't mean I'm gonna stop asking. I'm gonna keep asking. Because I want the signs, I want supernatural encounters, I want all of it. Now, if I don't get those things, will I not believe? No, because his word is enough, and I love his word, and I'm gonna continue to be in it and read it. Because, like I said, it's a life source for me. And one of the ways I believe God speaks to us is through dreams. And the Bible gives us many examples of this. I think that it's biblical to believe that God would speak to us through dreams. So here's just a few of those examples, and for time's sake, I'm not gonna read the scriptures, but I'm gonna give you where to find them. And these are just a handful of them, there's more. So you have Genesis chapter 28 and chapter 31 talking about Jacob and his dreams. You have Genesis chapter 37, where it talks about Joseph and his dreams. Genesis chapter 40 talks about the butler and the baker and Pharaoh. Remember that butler and baker were in the prison and they had dreams that Joseph interpreted. Um, Genesis chapter 41 talks about Pharaoh's dream, 1 Kings chapter 3, Solomon and his dreams, Daniel chapter 2, and chapter 4, it's Nebuchadnezzar's dreams. Going to the New Testament now, Matthew chapter 1 and chapter 2 talks about Joseph, Mary's husband, the dreams that God sent him. Matthew chapter 2 is the one where it talks about the wise men. They had dreams that God sent them. I mean, it goes on and on. Lots of examples of God using dreams to communicate to people. And over the past five years or so, I have spent some time doing some research and reading on biblical dream interpretation because I dream a lot and I always have. So I find it so interesting, and it's fun to kind of dig in and try to decode some of these dreams that are significant and to know that there might be a message from God. So, you know, is every dream from God? No, I don't think so. Because things we watch, things we listen to, you know, those can influence our dreams. And sometimes our current situations can influence our dreams. For instance, have you ever had what they call an anxiety dream? You know, if if you've got a lot of stress and anxiety, have you ever had those dreams where your teeth are falling out or your hair is falling out, or you've missed some sort of important event? Have you ever had a dream where you're like sitting on the toilet in front of a room full of people or naked, some sort of super embarrassing circumstance? Those are anxiety dreams. But you know what? Those dreams might still be God's way of bringing attention to the fact that anxiety and worry are an issue and something needs to be addressed. So anyway, I thought it would be fun to talk about a few dreams that I've had over the years and explain the interpretations that I have for them. And I used scripture, I used prayer, and I also used a book, which is more like a manual on dreams and symbolism in dreams. So you actually might decide you want this book after I talk about this. It's been so handy. And the title of it is The Divinity Code to Understanding Your Dreams and Visions by Adam F. Thompson and Adrian Beale. This is a biblically based book. It uses scripture for everything, and um it's been really helpful. But I do want to clarify, this book is not the very first thing I go to. If I have a dream that I think is significant, I think through it myself first, then I ask the Lord about it, and then I will go to the book sometimes. And most of the time it just confirms what I already feel about the dream. So I'm gonna attempt to include a link to this book in this podcast in the episode notes if you're you know wanting to look at the book. But if you don't find it there, if I can't figure out how to do that, you can email me at dissatisfiedpodcast at gmail.com and I'll send you the link. So I'm gonna start with a dream that I had in 2016. And as I share these dreams, I'm just gonna read them like I have them in my dream journal. Okay, so this one, 2016. So I had this dream almost exactly a month before my brother Rich killed himself. In the dream, I was floating above the earth, and an astronaut whose face I couldn't see was pushing me further and further away from the earth, far into space, where it was very dark. I could feel that this astronaut was evil. I was pushed far out into the darkness, and I was scared, and I couldn't breathe. All of a sudden it was bright and beautiful, and everything turned to color. And this part is hard to describe, but I could literally feel God's hand holding me and everything around me, the stars, the planets, everything. And I was in the middle of a golden sphere that God was holding. It felt like complete peace. I sensed in a very deep way that God was holding me and protecting me. Okay, that was the dream. Now I'm gonna give you the symbols that I pulled out of this dream and give you the interpretation of those symbols. So, first, the earth. So the earth can be representative of the non-faith realm or the sight realm, the things you see with your natural eyes. So the natural non-spiritual realm. The astronaut can represent enemy principalities or powers. The gold, the gold sphere, represents God's glory, the glory of God. Space represents the spiritual realm. The pushing, so the the astronaut pushing me was a significant part of this dream. So pushing represents something that is exerting dominance. And then, of course, darkness was a very big part of this dream, and that represents demonic presence or death. And here's my interpretation. Once I looked all that stuff up and prayed on it, so in the natural realm, there is something that I will see with my human eyes, but there is an enemy behind what I'm seeing. And this demonic spirit is powerful and it is working to kill and destroy. It will feel for a moment like things are out of control, like I'm surrounded by darkness and can't breathe, that my very life is ending. But suddenly everything will come into view, and I'll find myself at peace, covered and protected by God Himself, truly being held by Him. So that was my interpretation. Now there's two verses that I want to read that I think go with this dream. Psalm 139 ten. It says, Even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. Isaiah forty one ten says, Fear not, for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am your God, I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. So I really do believe that that dream was a foreshadowing dream of what was coming with my brother's suicide. Obviously, I didn't know that's what it was then, but I think it was maybe a week or two after Rich died that I ended up looking back at that dream and realized, oh wow, this was this was a dream that God gave me regarding Rich's suicide, going through that type of darkness. So I want to tell you this: write down your dreams. It's important to write down your dreams. Even if you think that the dream you had was crazy and didn't make sense, write it down. Especially if you're somebody who doesn't remember your dreams a lot. If you remember a dream, write it down, even pieces of them. Because it helps train your brain to keep remembering them. Also, once you wake up in the morning, don't just jump right out of bed. Lay there for just a minute or two and actually try to recall any dreams you had, even if it's just pieces. Also, another thing to help you remember dreams is before you go to sleep at night, ask God to give you dreams. Number one, pray that you would have dreams, and then ask the Holy Spirit to help you remember. And I I bet if you start doing those things that you'll find that you're dreaming more and remembering your dreams. That happened to Jared, my husband. He started to really focus, like before he was going to sleep at night, praying, asking for dreams, and he started to have more dreams. Okay, moving on. The next dream was from October of 2019. So again, I'm just gonna read it, how I had it in my journal. I had a very vivid dream about my dad this morning. I don't remember where we were, but my dad walked in, and I only saw this red and navy blue jacket he used to wear, and I recognized it as his, so I looked up and it was him. Exactly. His amazing black hair with a little bit of grey, his tan complexion, and his handsome face just as I remember. I saw him and I said, What are you doing here? And then I hugged him tight for a long time. He had a handful of peanuts, and he was eating them like he used to, shaking them in his hand, and then kind of throwing them in his mouth. Then all of a sudden I noticed he was standing and looking in his drawer from our old house. And then it switched and he was walking down our old country road away from the house. I was going to run after him, but I woke up. Okay. So I'm gonna give you the symbols, the things that were significant in the dream, and then their interpretation. So dad or father can be the natural father, or it can represent God, your heavenly father, and it can also represent the past. Now, in this dream, I believe that my dad represented all those all those things. My natural father also God and also the past. The jacket, which was the focal point in this dream, represents a mantle or authority or a position or role. The colors of the jacket, blue and red, blue can represent the Holy Spirit, red can represent Holy Spirit fire. The peanuts that he was eating represent the word of God. The drawer that he was looking in represents the heart or something that's hidden. The country road, the dirt road. I believe in this instance it is representative of the path of humbling dependence on the word of God. And then it was very significant to see him walking down the road, and walking can represent being in step with the spirit. So to put all the pieces together for this one, here's what I believe this dream was showing me. First, it's always nice to see my dad in my dreams, right? And be able to hug him, especially. Those things are always they feel so real if you've ever had something like that, where you get to hug someone that you've lost in your dream. So that's always a plus. But I believe that this dream was that the Lord was bringing attention to the role and position of the Holy Spirit in my life. So the significance of eating peanuts, I believe, points to the importance of the Word of God in my life, that it's nourishment for my soul. And I think the part where my dad, who I believe was representative of the Lord, you know, when he was looking through the drawer that was my dad's drawer at our old house, I believe God was showing me that there's something I need to search for within my own heart regarding my dad. Actually, I need to let the Lord search my heart regarding something to do with my dad or my past. And then the last part where he's walking down the country road is just pointing more to me relying on the Holy Spirit and dependence on God's word, walking with the spirit. So I had that dream in 2019. And then in 2024, that's where I made the journey back to my old house, the house my dad died in, the house I grew up in. And I talked about that in episode three back in February. So if you haven't listened to that, you should really listen. It's a pretty cool story. But I thought, you know, from 2019 on, those years leading up to my journey back to that house, I was really processing a lot with the Lord. And God led me back to my house. It was a total God thing, every step of it. So I think that that dream was God showing me that eventually I would be back there, that God was searching my heart, and that there were things that I had to deal with. And I did. Okay, the next dream. March of 2024 was this one. Oh, really quick. I do want to say this about that last dream. That's just also another reminder that sometimes your dreams won't make sense until years later. That's why it's so important to write them down because sometimes you'll get to something in your life, and if you know the Lord will bring something to mind, you go back, you look through these things that you've written down, and then you can put all the pieces together. And it's so cool when that happens. Okay, so next stream, this is March of 2024. I was holding the cutest little baby and protecting it from a crazy person who was driving erratically in a parking lot. I do know who the person is in this dream, I'm just not gonna name them. So this person was trying to run over all the little kids, and the baby was in the parking lot, and I scooped it up to save it. All of a sudden we were hiding behind a truck, and Brennan was with me. We ran into a house and we took the baby up these stairs. At this point it turned into Donnie and Chris's old house, our old family friends. It was dark, but there were Christmas lights all over the living room and dining room, and it was beautiful and peaceful. Suddenly it turned into Rich, my brother, standing there with me, and I started to cry really hard, saying the memories, the memories. We stood at the bottom of the steps on the main level as I was holding the baby in my left arm, and I wrapped my right arm around Rich's back, and he wrapped his left arm around me. He was his younger self in his late teens or early twenties. As we stood there, the memory of me choking on the candy heart as I ran up those stairs came flooding back, and I wanted to tell Rich. But I was crying too hard. And then I woke up. A lot going on in that dream. Okay, so here we go. A few of the symbols that I pulled out from this dream were, of course, the baby. The baby was very significant. And the baby represents God's promise or my future. The upstairs, meaning when we went up the stairs, represents going into the presence of God or your mind or thoughts. The lights, all the Christmas lights, represent illumination. God illuminating something. And the stairs going up, the ones that once we were inside our old friend's home, so we're standing at the bottom of the steps and the steps are going up. This is the coolest part. It means God might be bringing you to a place of being mindful of the things of the spirit. And then my right arm going around my brother represents strength and authority. Okay, so now I'm going to piece all this together. So the person in the car driving crazy, trying to run over the baby, trying to kill the kids, is the enemy, trying to kill God's promises in my life, trying to steal my future. And then going into a house and going up those stairs was taking me into the presence of God, taking me into a place of his presence, of showing me things. And then it turns into our old family friend's home where these, you know, Christmas lights are, God's illuminating something. And then my brother and I are standing at the foot of the stairs looking up. And the stairs going up, meaning God might be bringing you to a place of being mindful of the things of the spirit. And then I had that memory of choking on the candy heart, which is a real memory, by the way. And I was crying too hard to even say anything. But I'm still holding the baby, the promises of God. And then I put my other arm around Rich, my brother. And you know, it wasn't until I was making notes for this podcast and going through all this that I realized what it was that God was illuminating. What it was that I'm becoming mindful of with things of the spirit. And it blew my mind. And actually, when God showed me, when I feel God showed me this, I actually started to cry because it was so um, I don't know, it was such a revelation to have. So I want to tell you about the memory of the candy heart. So the memory was when I was in first grade and I stayed the night over at that house with our friend's daughter, who was my age. And it was around Valentine's Day, so they had, you know, a bowl of candy hearts in the living room. And I remember I grabbed one of the candy hearts, popped it in my mouth, as my friend and I ran up the stairs to go play in her room. But halfway up the stairs, the candy heart got lodged in my throat and I couldn't breathe. And I remember this so clearly still because it was so terrifying. So, I mean, no air at all, nothing coming in or out. I was choking. So I ran back down the stairs and into the kitchen where her parents were, and I remember her dad was standing there and I was grabbing my neck, and I'm sure I looked terrified. And he said, Are you choking? And he ran over to me and he did the Heimlich maneuver. And I remember that candy heart shot out like a rocket onto their kitchen table. So what was it then that God was illuminating to me about this? What's the whole point of this? How was it all connected? Well, I believe the Lord was showing me that even then the enemy was trying to silence me. Even then, the enemy was trying to destroy God's promises in my life. And my brother being in the dream and being his younger self, I think that was a symbol of things stolen. But putting my right arm around his back, I believe, is showing the strength and authority that God has given me over what the enemy has stolen, what the enemy has taken. But here's the crazy part that I thought of as I was working on this episode. So Donnie, my dad's best friend, is whose house I was at when I choked on the candy heart. He's the one who saved my life by doing the Heimlich maneuver. And here was the revelation. 13 years later, he would save my life in a different way because Donnie was the one who went to my house before I did and found my dad after he committed suicide when I was 20 years old. And I share that story in episode one. But you know what? I'm not sure what that would have done to my mind or my life had I been the one to find my dad after killing himself. So that was such a cool moment recently to have that revelation of the connection of all those things. But I think that's just the way it is. There's so many amazing, connected and intertwined stories in our lives, but we don't even realize it. And like I said, I didn't even have the revelation about Donnie saving my life twice until working on this story. So sometimes it takes years for us to connect the dots. But we have to stay in step with the Lord. We have to be in his word. We have to be seeking him and praying and all those things to be able to even connect the dots. So I'm telling you, write your dreams down, even if you think they don't make sense. Because it might not be until years later that they actually do make sense. In Joel chapter 2, 28 and 29, it says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see vision, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days. And then Peter quoted those verses in the New Testament at P at Pentecost. So the message is that God speaks to us in those ways. So we should probably pay attention. Okay, I have one more dream that I want to share. So several years ago, I was feeling like I should get rid of something that was from my childhood. And, you know, it didn't have any monetary value or anything. It was just sentimental. But it's something a lot of people have, so I'm not going to say what it was because this was, you know, specifically about me. But there was something about this thing that kept bothering me, and I didn't really know why. I just started to feel like I should get rid of it. So I spent months battling back and forth with myself about it. And it got to the point where I was feeling really stressed about it. And I really needed an answer. So I prayed and I told the Lord, I said, Hey, I need an answer with this. Is this something that I need to get rid of? And so I specifically asked the Lord to give me the answer in a dream. And that very night I had a dream. So this was the dream. I was in a cavern, a type of deep cavern, but it was open at the top, so I could still see daylight and the sun was shining through. And I was standing at the bottom with the big rock wall surrounding me. And there were several different paths all around me. And I heard an audible voice in my dream. And it said, walk by faith and not by sight. And I woke up. That was it. Walk by faith and not by sight. And I took that as my answer. That I needed to have faith in what I was sensing and feeling. So even though I didn't fully understand it all, I got rid of that thing. And, you know, did something huge happen after I got rid of it? No. Not that I know of, but we don't know everything that happens in the spiritual realm. So all I know is I was obedient. And all I know is that I feel the Lord specifically gave me that dream. Walk by faith and not by sight. That was my answer. And here's the thing. Did you know that science can't even fully explain where dreams come from or why we even dream? They know how our brain behaves when we're dreaming because they can study that. And you know, the certain parts of our brains that are activated when we're dreaming, they can see all that, but they don't fully understand why we dream or how we dream. And I believe it's because there's a supernatural component to our dreams. So it's a protected place where the Lord can communicate with us. So I hope you start to pay attention to your dreams, writing them down to see if there's something the Lord is showing you, to see if He's speaking something to you. And I would encourage you, if you feel like you really need an answer to something, you know, similar to what I was looking for, ask God. Ask God to give you an answer in your dreams. He's faithful. And, you know, there's the scripture that talks about you have not because you ask not. There's a lot of things that we don't have because we're not asking him. And he's a good father. He wants to give us good gifts. So I encourage you to start asking God for dreams. And if you're interested in the book I mentioned, like I said, I'm going to try to link it in the episode notes. But if it happens to not be there, just email me at dissatisfiedpodcast at gmail.com. So hopefully you've enjoyed this episode and it inspires you to start asking God for dreams. So go get to dreaming, friends. Thanks for listening, and I hope you will join me next week.