The Hearing God Podcast
Anthony Moore and Dan Lamos have met for coffee every week for over a decade. You're invited to listen in on their conversation on The Hearing God Podcast. Explore the prophetic, mystical, and heart-centered aspects of a life filled with the Holy Spirit. Each episode offers insights, inspiration, and practical wisdom to deepen your spiritual journey. Tune in for authentic and encouraging conversations that will enrich and empower your walk with God.
The Hearing God Podcast
Dreams: God Speaks While You Sleep
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Have you ever dismissed a dream as "just your brain processing the day" only to wonder later if there was something more to it? What if those nighttime narratives were actually divine communication—God's way of speaking to you through symbols and stories while you rest?
Dreams occupy a fascinating intersection of psychology, spirituality, and mystery. Throughout Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, we see God consistently using dreams as a pivotal communication channel with His people. Joseph's prophetic dreams saved nations. Daniel's interpretations changed kingdoms. Even Jesus was protected through divine dream warnings. Yet many believers today remain unaware of how profoundly God might be speaking to them through their dream life.
In this episode, we explore how dreams function as "parables that happen in your sleep"—continuing Jesus' tradition of teaching through symbolic narratives. We unpack practical ways to steward your dreams through recording, reflecting, and interpreting with the help of trusted community. Rather than categorizing dreams as either "purely psychological" or "directly from God," we discuss how our dream life reflects the beautiful complexity of our relationship with God—sometimes processing our daily concerns, sometimes receiving divine guidance, and often a meaningful blend of both.
Welcome to the Hearing God Podcast. I'm Anthony Moore.
Speaker 2:And I'm Dan Lamas. For over a decade, anthony and I have been diving deep into weekly conversations about the prophetic, the mystical and the matters of the heart.
Speaker 1:And we invite you into these weekly conversations. We hope you feel like an honored guest at our table, so pull up a chair, settle in and let's get started guest at our table, so pull up a chair settle in and let's get started. Well, here we are. Here we are, anthony. How's it going, dan, really good, really good.
Speaker 2:Nice to have you back after. Thank you, thank you and thank you, justin. That was. That was fun having him step in and fun hearing from him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, love that guy, have him on again sometime in the future.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, uh. So uh, how you doing Like how's, what's, what's?
Speaker 2:I'm doing really well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm doing really well. Yeah, just uh, grateful, grateful. God just keeps reminding me of his love and just the. You know I've had this thing rolling around in me. You know the whole idea of God knows us, always, has known us and he has knows about us. Yeah, and that's kind of where I've been living lately. Like God trained me to think about myself the way you do and that's really been helping me in some interesting ways, way you do, and that's really been helping me in some interesting ways. So I'm grateful for the love of god. Um, in a just a deeper way maybe for sure, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1:Uh, that triggered a thought in my mind of, uh, this quote by bill johnson um, and he says we cannot afford to have any thought in our mind that god doesn't have about us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's good Because, God being truth, you know if we have some other thought that he doesn't have then that's basically a lie.
Speaker 2:Right man, and that's good, because it might seem fairly innocuous at the beginning, or even innocent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a minor. Everybody thinks that way.
Speaker 2:But if you take it down the track, it really is going to distance you from the truth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, that's a, that's a freebie, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I thought we we could crack open a very interesting subject, one that has consumed like plenty of our conversations over the years, which is the subject of dreams. Yes, yes. And you know we've shared, we've taken cracks at interpretations. We have a bunch of team members who love to dig into the meaning and imagery in dreams, Grateful for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, saved me a lot of research time. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we have a bunch of friends who also just people that we know around that do love dreams and dream interpretations, right, like not only are you an avid dreamer, um, but you are someone who, uh, someone who takes care to write down your dreams, which we'll get to that in, maybe a little bit, but yeah so so I'm picturing, I call I call you an authority on the matter. Is there a?
Speaker 2:dream dewey decimal system. I'm picturing myself as quiet research library with the wooden cabinet cataloging all the dreams and dating them and so on. Yeah, I really I love. I love the world of dreaming. I really do. I have, I've had just a real kinship with it from the time of childhood, like definitely, and I think that it is a beautiful, in some ways unexplored territory for a lot of the Christians, at least in our society here in North America. It's kind of the Western world of the church.
Speaker 1:Rational, logical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's an underappreciation for how dreams can be a beautiful, very helpful place for God in our life and helpful for us to understand.
Speaker 1:So that's actually the first place that, um, I think we should start. Is so our dreams from god?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, so what do you?
Speaker 1:yeah, what's your? What's your, uh, what's your stance on the matter?
Speaker 2:well, I guess that's a. It's a. I'll take a shot at it. Okay, so this is not a well thought through. We were about to.
Speaker 1:We're both about ready to take a shot at it, so this is not a well thought through.
Speaker 2:We were both about ready to take a drink of our coffee.
Speaker 1:I have a chisel and I'm about to carve whatever you say in stone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it would be fun for everybody to know that here in the studio it's very dim lighting and kind of some black lights and reflecting decals on the wall of moons. No, there's not, it's a dream episode. We haven't especially decorated the studio, but you can imagine that if you want. Sure, that would be fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I guess it seems that the way God created humans is with this functioning of dreaming, the ability to dream. So I would say, really, if we're going down to the roots to say God has designed us to dream, and since he wants to relate to our whole being, he, he wants to be in this. You know scripture, jesus says greatest command love the lord, your god, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength your whole being. In other words, uh, he created us with this function of dreaming, probably to help on a bunch of different levels. Yeah, so, yes, god designed dreaming to be part of the human experience. So I would say yes, and it seems from a study of the Bible that from the earliest days, god met human beings in the world of dreams.
Speaker 1:Right. So one of the things that's interesting to me is that, like I think I've heard my whole life a little bit like, as you grow up, you I mean again you kind of grow up always dreaming, but then it is a bit of a mystery about, okay, what we can dream some really bizarre things in dreams, yes, and dare I say, frequently dream some bizarre things in dreams.
Speaker 1:At least things that don't make logical sense as according to our waking life, right, right. So I would say that, like for my whole life, I've, you know, I've dreamed some nights, you do some nights, you don't. Some seasons you do some seasons, you don't. At least that's, or my mind's struggle, or attempt to process details of the day, right, which I don't think is a terribly uncommon sort of thought, right, also, the introduction of, like I think I remember like a sitcom when I was a kid uh, somebody had eaten I don't know something, some kind of food before bed we would might call them pizza dreams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like yeah someone had eaten some kind of food and then started to have some really bizarre dreams right, yeah, yeah so this, this sort of like, this idea started to creep into my understanding of dreams, is that there wasn't any more to it than that. And then, and I sort of lived like that for a long time and then, sort of in these later years, like there was, I started to understand that there's actually a biblical. There's like and again, like we're we're christians, yeah, we subscribe to a biblical worldview. And if that's true, then shouldn't we take the biblical stance or the biblical worldview as the sort of like, the defining standard, right on the fact that like okay, so what's the deeper thing going on here while we dream?
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, what's the system and rhythm of life that we should expect? A hundred percent, you know, including the psychological, like our mind trying to sort out the wrestlings of our day? Yeah, absolutely Okay, that doesn't have to be outside of God's design either. Right, like, sometimes people might say, okay, if dreams are psychological and it's just our being kind of sorting things out so that we can maintain stability in our life, well, even if that is part of what dreams are, well, that's of God. It's like it's recognizing that this is God's design and so we don't need to be categorizing well, okay, that was a psychological dream. And then, over here, way over on the other side, well, here's a God dream. Like, no, it's going to be a mixture, as we are, even within our being, with God. Yes, of course, there is a dynamic to dreaming. That is a healthy, just helping us sort stuff out, absolutely to dreaming.
Speaker 2:That is a healthy just helping us sort stuff out and even understanding. What am I afraid of these days? Oftentimes that'll show up in a dream and it actually helps me to understand. You know what I think? This is the kind of feeling that's overwhelming me lately and that could even point me to take that to God, a hundred percent God in my dreams. I keep dreaming this thing. I feel like I am afraid, overly afraid, these days. I'm going to come and I'm going to bring your word to that Right and I want to confront this Perfect love casts out all fear.
Speaker 2:I surrender that to. I've had dreams direct me to know what to pray, even in my own discipleship and health within myself. That's great. So, there's definitely a role there.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely there is, I think there is a we there is a, there is very much again. So I would agree with you what?
Speaker 2:do you call that Remedial?
Speaker 1:I would say like yeah, for sure, you like. What do you call that remedial? I would say like, yeah, for sure, like I would. I've had, even recently, uh, I recall having a series of sort of dreams and but it was very connected to a few things that happened the day, the day before yes, right, so it was so it was like, indeed, maybe a little bit connected to okay, so I'm processing, yeah something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe, and it wasn't necessarily like so I wasn't reliving those scenes yeah uh, of maybe my previous day or a couple days, but I would be. If I took a step back and talked about themes, the kinds of situations that I was in, then it would be okay. Well, maybe I was having those dreams because I'm still chewing on those events that happened, yeah, which is like bizarre a little bit, because you're sort of I wonder, and again, like I think there are some people who can and there are windows I'm not saying this has never happened to me there are some, uh, there are some dreams that you could live in, uh, where you can actually choose, right, you can have some autonomy in the dreams like okay, so I'm choosing to do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, therefore, I will go and do this, but oftentimes you're sort of at the mercy of your, your dream, right you're. It can feel like it feels almost like a dream is happening to you, right, rather than you're you know you're an active participant, right? Or you have some measure of like control in the dream You're watching yourself do something You're basically like a scene is unfolding in your mind you know as you sleep.
Speaker 1:So it often feels like a dream is happening to you and you're sort of like, okay, here's the movie for the night.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess that's an interesting dynamic for sure, and I guess when we sort of teach a little bit about dreams in the prophetic class, we would say very much that dreams can come from God. There could be, at times, demonic influence in your dreams. Yes, absolutely. And then it could be very much just you like very much you chewing on the things of the day, totally Right, right.
Speaker 2:And so in those seasons of my life where I don't take my sleeping portion of my day, when I don't take that seriously, on a asking for spiritual protection, like it's, like, it's almost like, if I treat my sleep time as the enemy takes a break cause I'm asleep, yeah, and God takes a break cause I'm asleep.
Speaker 1:If I just sort of feel like when I sleep, that's everything's unplugged that actually, I'm being foolish in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because the enemy doesn't take a break. God certainly is present and active. The one who does not sleep is watching over me.
Speaker 2:Yeah um I have found in scripture and in my own life experience, god makes use of that time.
Speaker 2:Often, while I'm resting, I'm getting legit rest and sleep, but he will use that time to interact with me. It's wise for me to pray over my sleep, to go—and we don't need to dig into this so much today. It might be a fun topic another time. Need to dig into this so much today, it might be a fun topic another time. But but ask actually getting myself in a position to be under the protection of of God before I sleep, barring the enemy from messing with my dreams, cause the enemy does mess with us, with our dream life, through our dream life. If we're just a very, if we leave ourselves vulnerable it was through our dream life. If we're just a very, if we leave ourselves vulnerable everything from being too casual about our sleep to actually watching a movie that was something we shouldn't have been entertaining our mind with, uh, scrolling and look and contemplating stuff Everything from lustful to hateful to bitter or deceptive, uh, whatever, before we go to sleep and leaving ourself wide open.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, of course the enemy can mess with us, right, and it's like the fact that he can and does mess with us in our dreams at times. That's a good reason to commit it to god, a hundred percent, you know, and I can lie down and sleep. And I can lie down and sleep in peace because it's the lord god who protects me, right? It's just one of the psalms I can't remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah I do want to get back to, just just before we move on from from the uh I want to crack, crack this open, just to hit this off. The top is just talking about like that dreams are like from.
Speaker 1:God but they're also part of the biblical worldview. And this is the part that, like this, is the part that sort of twists me a little bit or gets me a little bit annoyed that there are a lot of people out there that would subscribe to the beliefs of the Bible but then also would be completely ignorant to, quite literally, how many pivotal things happened in the Bible because of dreams. Yes, right, like so. We just, you know when we just some of the famous ones, like obviously Joseph Joseph was the dreamer yes, Right Like the famous dreamer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, obviously Joseph. Joseph was the dreamer, right Like the famous dreamer, and again, like there's some. There's this funny exchange that happens between Joseph and Jacob talking about dreams, Cause you know, Joseph has obviously his dreams get him in trouble because he you know he, you know epic boyhood dreams.
Speaker 2:I love it, man.
Speaker 1:He's like oh, by the way, but you know the, the sun, moon and stars bowing down to him. Yeah, the, you know these other kinds of things. There's some bundles of wheat or something like that that were bowing as well. It was like clearly.
Speaker 2:Oh, and it actually meets up with a number of siblings he had and his parents. Wow, amazing of siblings.
Speaker 1:He had and his parents. Wow, amazing, they're all bowing down to him Right. Like. This is the thing, like the there. It isn't explicit about this, but that exchange, you know, during some of those chapters and verses, there there's the there. I think it was Jacob who who mentioned something like like are not dreams from the Lord are like in their interpretation right and.
Speaker 1:I think that's where that is, but really this notion of, I guess the thing that kind of just intrigues me is that there's a lot left unsaid there, because it seems as though they're already in Genesis, know genesis, right at that point in genesis, there would have been a common understanding about dreams. It isn't sort of like just like laid out there explicitly right, but there it's almost like we're in the middle understood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is under this is understood.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know, we talk about abraham, uh being. You know, there's some scenes in Abraham where Abraham and Sarah are protected. You know, by dreams, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right yeah.
Speaker 1:What's his name? His name just escaped me, but one of the kings that they go to visit. You know, there's this whole situation where Sarah ends up. You know he says, hey, she's my sister.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. You know, and then the guy goes and has a dream like if you do anything to this woman, I'm going to kill you right. As far as we know this guy would be a pagan king, although abraham I mean, yeah, the story it's an interesting story abraham's just really discovering he isn't a pagan.
Speaker 1:You know, um, yeah, but it was, but I think, yeah, but I think it's the, the theme of, of dreams within the bible and even from the old testament to the new testament. You have I don't know, I'm gonna miss some for sure but like you have abraham, uh, you have the, the covenant that he established, that god established with abraham. Yeah, you know, you could read it that he was actually having a dream that he fell into a. It says a great darkness, but you could read that as he was having a sleep. We know about the situation we were talking about talking about Joseph. We talk about King Solomon, right, the covenant that God establishes with him, with that whole exchange about. You know, ask for anything and I will give it to you.
Speaker 1:And Solomon goes give me wisdom, right, or you know? There's a few other things there. But also that happens in a dream, right, daniel? Daniel is the right. There's your namesake right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and was it Nebuchadnezzar that had the dream? Yes, how crazy was that? Oh, dude, I was actually going to use anyway but it was, yeah it was. It was a. It was an amazing scene. The king dreams and says okay, if one of you, one of you, uh sorcerers, uh, one of you, uh dream interpreters, can't interpret this, you're all gonna die right, and I want you to tell me what I drank.
Speaker 1:Imagine that there's a high pressure. Okay, first of all, here was what you dreamt and then here's what it means.
Speaker 2:And daniel steps up and like, well, I can't do it, but my god will I love it absolutely anyway.
Speaker 1:But yeah, yeah, you and you have other situations where Jesus is saved because Joseph has an angel. And the angel comes to Joseph in a dream Paul's missionary journeys are altered because he has a dream. When the man from Macedonia says come over here.
Speaker 2:And they were going to go one way. But then he has the dream.
Speaker 1:So they ended up going, you know, somewhere else. So that's just, I think. I think it's healthy and important and it's a bit of a. It's a bit of a sort of like because it's bizarre, because it's to the rational mind, because it's. There's a little bit of like okay, well, that's ignorant, or I want to be ignorant about it, like I don't want to. It's so it's super weird. Only crazy people really care about dreams. Well, I think that it's actually important not only is important, but it's healthy for the believer to start to pay attention to their dreams. Yes, and I think this is the point where I sort of just wanted to like make I think one of the first points that I think I wanted to make this morning is that we're talking is that it's actually part of good discipleship, it's actually part of stewarding. You know, again, this is what we're talking about this is the Hearing God podcast.
Speaker 1:To take steps to steward how God speaks to us is to embrace and to begin to care for and pay attention to our dream life. Yes, and so that's the, that's a, it's a really, it's a really huge thing. And it's not for no reason that we do that. It's actually from a biblical worldview that we actually and it's not like we've decided oh, this feels this is very exegetical, right. It's actually talking about reason and logic.
Speaker 1:It's their chapter and verse that there are times and seasons in people's life where God will actually come and he will instruct. If you know his people and we don't and I would say just throwing this in there, I would say, in his faithfulness, he would do that whether or not we were paying attention. Yes, right, and so we could look back and you know again, we should have went left, and we, when we went right, yeah, you know, and he, we won't be able to look back and go. Okay, god, you didn't try to save me from myself there or from.
Speaker 1:And just the last thing on the biblical worldview. There's a scripture verse in Job and it escapes me now, exactly chapter and verse. But there is a scripture verse in Job that talks about in a dream, in a vision of the night, the Lord will come and say and you know, give something about giving counsel and save you from the pit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. Like there's warnings that can come by dreams, yes, and so like it's very clear from a biblical worldview that God speaks in dreams. And so now that we've established that, I think I want to just maybe throw it back over to you again and say talk to you about because you're the one who does this most. I do this a little bit, but you're the one who does this the most what is it like for you to steward a dream? What does it mean for you to steward?
Speaker 2:yeah, a dream, so great. Yeah, like what does it eat?
Speaker 2:for you to like get the dream and then start to, then start to unpack that dream yeah, that's good yeah yeah, yeah, um, which I mean it's been a uh, that's been something that's been in development for some decades of my life. Right, so I will make a lot of use of my voice memo function on my phone If I have a dream that seemed vivid, that it grabbed me in a sense, I will. Sometimes it's even just rolling over in bed and whispering into into my voice.
Speaker 2:Memo to just get to just get a basic idea of what the dream was. Or I might get up and go to another room and take, you know, three or four minutes to describe what I just dreamt. And then what I will do is I will take that and when I come into my prayer and journaling time that I try to do every morning, I try to set aside time every morning for lots of you know what all the, all the things that a prayer, you know, an hour or so of prayer, All the activities I take part in in that time. But if I've just dreamt, I will take that recording and actually write it out as a what do you call it? A transcribe. Create a little bit of a manuscript of the dream and treat it like it's a story that I'm writing based on my dream. Write out the details, Because it is amazing Once you start describing a dream to somebody it's amazing how long it takes.
Speaker 2:I know Like I'll have a quick dream.
Speaker 1:There's so many details that might seem very surface level.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But you start to remember really specific details about those things.
Speaker 2:Anyway, keep going. Yeah. So, for instance, Anthony, you would be somebody I would share dreams with, right. So if I have a significant dream and I think I might text you and say, hey, do you have a couple minutes? I had this amazing dream last night and then it'll take me five minutes to describe it to you on the phone and I'm realizing whoops like there's a lot, it's a lot more than two minutes there, yeah there's a lot.
Speaker 2:You're given the backstory and you're you realize as you do, you're catching, even then, part of the meaning of what you dreamt, why it was meaningful to you. But I will write that down and and that feels tedious at times, and I and I have probably, I've and I've probably written out a few hundred dreams over my adult life and almost every time I'm like I don't feel like doing this because it just feels like, oh, this is a long process, but it helps and since I'm seeking the interpretation of the dream, it, even as I'm writing it, a meaning will dawn on me as I express a scene a certain way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll even see in my own sentence that I've just written. Ah, that reminds me of a scripture verse and I might recognize that part of interpreting the dream. I had came as I wrote it out, but so I I try to record capture. Had came as I wrote it out, yeah, but so I I try to record, capture it, I'm recording, write it out, um, and then, uh, and I'll even at times, not just hasn't happened often, but I'll even at times give a title right, give it a title, yeah, cause that helps again to draw out. So there's some meanings and dreams that are just kind of sitting there but you're not articulating them, so you don't realize you. Actually, yeah, the dream means something. Yeah, and you already intuit what it means. Yeah, but giving it a title begins to give a little shape to it, like, oh, okay, right, and, and that might connect to a biblical theme, for instance, yeah, yeah, and so the dream begins to have a little bit of a life of its own Right.
Speaker 1:Right, and so sorry to interrupt. That's all right, but I do want to say, like, this is what it means to steward, yes, Like to care for right. So that dreams matter is that we do these kinds of things, and it's amazing what happens now, Cause we all know again that that sort of those few waking moments are super critical when it comes to actually remembering your dreams right, there are, there are dreams you know, in the sort of like on the scale, that you know where the intensity is, maybe a little bit off the charts, right, that we will remember regardless if we write them down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there are dreams, though that are like vapors right and I think this is for the, for a lot of and again, even ones that are medium ones right that you might be chewing on for the morning, and if you don't write them down, you'll eventually forget them, right? The crazy thing is is that if you write them down and you go back and reread what you've written down, it's like right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The dream is often right there. It's like those, the imagery the scenes. It's almost like you live them. Yes, that's right, it's like, and so there, there is a, there's a powerful truth there.
Speaker 1:But just before I get off, uh and onto something else, but I do want to highlight that oftentimes, whether you remember a dream or not often comes down to what happens in those few waking you know, like, like, maybe even seconds right, like there have been times where I've, like, literally reached over for my phone, grabbed something and then by the time I got to my phone and got all the notes section all up and all that stuff but I couldn't remember the dream.
Speaker 1:Or it started to get a little foggy even then, but I think, for the believer to start to, if you want to, this is like again, this is trust God that he you know this isn't an element like, but I would say I think trust God that he's leading you perfectly.
Speaker 1:But if you want to grow in your depth of being, to grow in your depth of being, you know, led by God, and discover how he may be speaking to you like it would be, it's adventurous, like it's a fun adventure to begin to just dig into your dreams, right, and so I think I was just did a quick scan, like I have 200 and I have a dreams and visions folder and, again, like 90% of them would be dreams that I would have been had. So over the over the years, and that's probably seven or eight years since I started paying attention to them yeah, you know. And again like so. So how many nights have you have I dreamt in? You know seven or eight years.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have I dreamt in, you know, seven or eight years, right there's, there's a few thousand. So I've certainly have some work to do in the level of dreams that I steward, but I'm I'm really happy that I have some measure of like just even cataloging, and you know those, those dreams.
Speaker 2:But yeah, my assumption. My assumption is that the high percentage of awesomeness that may have been available to me in my dreams over the years, I've probably missed a high percentage of them. I've only really captured a small percentage of the awesomeness that is going on in the midst of dreaming. I think it's worth just celebrating.
Speaker 2:You know, david said, you know I am fearfully and wonderfully made Like like there's something so amazing about God's creation in us that that we like dream life to me is like this visit to, oh, my soul, like life is far more amazing than I thought. In God's creation, yeah, um, the life he's, he's gifted me with, yeah, gifted each of us with, is much more amazing than we would imagine Absolutely. And it's just an opportunity to recognize God. The way you have made us is wonderful, amazing. It's beyond, really, what we understand, even Absolutely, and so there is far more that we could capture about our dreams.
Speaker 2:But thank God, as you were saying, he gives us the ability to wade into the water and begin to appreciate and steward this dynamic of our dreaming experiences. So I do assume that there is going to be. You know a lot about my dreaming. That is just this amazing being that god's created, absolutely dysfunctioning and like it's. Uh, like I might have many thoughts during the day, but when I sleep it kind of plays out in like a multi-dimensional thing, so that even though god's participating with me in my dream life, I don't't. I'm not saying in that that everything that happens there is sort of directly from God infallible experience.
Speaker 2:It's. It's always. I'm mixed in there. This is this. Is God like, sovereignly allowing me to get a picture of what's going on around my life? I'm having these thoughts and in dreams I feel like he shows me. Maybe this is why I'm feeling the way I am, for better or for worse. And in the midst of that, at times he will say he will allow me to walk through a dream episode which is actually he's. It's more him than me, it's a more okay. Here's what. Here's what's going on with me, dan, and I'm going to show you a glimpse on where this is all headed. You know so. So, in that I don't always know that, I'm not always looking at the details, that the details are predictions of what are going to, what is going to happen For sure, it's usually a themed storyline that says this is the kind of thing that's going on, dan, and this is where the kingdom is headed Right.
Speaker 1:Because I think that's a bit of the gift and this is probably I don't know if I've necessarily articulated this ever before, but the gift is. So when we take these dreams and we steward them and then we chew on them and again, because whether or not, like I probably let's say, if I've recorded 290, I've certainly chewed on. You know whether I've forgotten or wasn't able to write them down, I've chewed on as about as many or maybe even more, right, so I might just, oh, that was a wild dream, and then you might spend a little bit of the morning. Now I've clearly forgotten them, but I think the gift of it was is that, especially in this avenue where God's involved, if I believe that God's involved in my dreams, and I start to chew on them, right, and I start to process them and maybe, maybe it's like some helpful help, you know some helpful nugget for the day.
Speaker 1:It isn't necessarily like life altering, right, my life trajectory is suddenly changed because I've had this dream, but at least my heart and my mind are posture towards you know what God has for me, right, like my heart and my mind are postured towards things that he may be saying to me, or at least I'm trying to search that out, right, and so that in and of itself is a bit of a gift Because it again it's like it points me. Again I'm not worried about you know, I don't know like the bills or like the cares of the day, yes, but those moments are actually like I'm pointing myself towards seeking to know God better, right, right, even by trying to discern the meaning of a dream. I'm seeking to know God better, right, even by trying to discern the meaning of a dream. I'm seeking to know God better because I'm trying to unearth something in my dream life that he may be saying to me.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree, dreams are a part of our relationship with God. They are absolutely a part of our relationship with God.
Speaker 1:And so one thing I do want to cover is like the nature of the and again, like, okay, so you're a human If you're listening to this podcast, you're a human, you have dreamt right. And again, there's a lot of reasons why you wouldn't. Or you know you would or you wouldn't dream. Again, like, if you know, one of the big things, the big hurdles in my life, is that I didn't actually care for my sleep, so I wasn't actually. That was a big. That was a big moment for me is that when I, when I was asking God for more dreams, he told me very clearly to steward my sleep dreams. He told me very clearly to steward my sleep.
Speaker 1:And when I did, when I started, you know, when, I started mattering to me that I was getting seven, eight hours of sleep a night usually seven, but when I started getting restful sleep.
Speaker 2:I started dreaming more and it was like. It was like the, the.
Speaker 1:It was like a faucet turned on and it was like. It was like a hundred and some days in a row that I dreamt yeah, okay and um, but, but I and I'm getting off my point but the the idea of, like um, you know, stewarding, stewarding your dreams and caring, caring about them where was I even going with that now, what was I getting?
Speaker 2:Oh, the idea that how God speaks is a little bit. This is what I wanted to get to.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, is the riddle nature right that oftentimes there's some pretty bizarre things that happen in your sleep? That's right. So we oftentimes, you know, don't? It's a little bit of a default and maybe we overlook it a little bit because we might presuming. I guess we go into a dream presuming there's a riddle going on, yes, there's a narrative going on. There's a riddle going on, yes, there's a narrative going on. You know, when I dream of a phone that I don't, often I don't just say, oh, this is explicitly a phone.
Speaker 1:In real life it can often mean something else A call, a call, communication, those kinds of things, right. So talk to me a little bit about how that's you know, what's your take on that?
Speaker 2:right, the riddle nature. The riddle nature, yeah, of a dream. Yeah, oh, that's so great Because you know, if you read, you know, in the prophets and patriarchs of the faith, and you know, and patriarchs of the faith, and you know, like we talked about Mary and Joseph in the Gospels and how you know they would have, they had these dreams that were directive and so on, that you see so much symbolism and you see the prophets interpreting the picture they saw in their dream. Yes, that tradition of working with your dreams of I saw this picture and the Lord interpreted it this way to me. The tradition of that showed up in, in my opinion, in Jesus ministry of teaching in parables.
Speaker 1:Yes, he often taught them in parables.
Speaker 2:I agree Like to me, a parable is like a dream is a parable that happens in your sleep. Yes, so that's the way I tend to treat it. I figured Jesus is probably continuing to teach me using parables, so I tend to think that way. Oh, what would that mean? In the same way that I would sit down with my Bible and read the parable of the soil and the seeds and stuff, I will feel very free to let the Holy Spirit walk me through that and help me unlock meaning in that parable. I feel very free to let that affect my life. I'll do the same thing with the parable of my dream. Yeah, this is great.
Speaker 1:And so I don't. I feel, I feel like, if you, if, if you hear one thing and stewarding your dreams, if you get one thing out of this podcast, this is this is like gold right here. Keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I feel like that. That tradition is throughout scripture of. Here is a picture, and I believe God loves the fact that the picture draws us into communication with him yes, draws. I want to spend some time with you, god, trying to trying to discern what is the meaning of this picture you've given me, and I just feel like God loves that. It's like God's like kicking back, like I love this, hang out, let's hang out, and and he, he loves, he loves the process of me working it out.
Speaker 2:And then when I land on something and he's like, yep, that's what I want you to take from this dream. It feels so satisfying to me, but it feels very satisfying to God as we're there together. He's like I love that you pursued me on this and I just want to throw in there real quick. I have a circle of trusted friends that I would assume. Okay, I think I know what this dream is about, but I also have a very high level of value and respect for the community of prophetic people and I will share it with a few, saying hey, if you get some impressions about this, I would love to hear it, and that has helped me to bring the riddle to a few friends and it's amazing to me, I'll stew over something and I get it, and then my friend will hear it at first blush and say, oh, that means this.
Speaker 2:I think and then it'll unlock something for me like oh my soul, but that didn't come from me. It's part of the humble process of getting a meaning from this, from God through a brother or sister. It's very meaningful to me too, but what's the proverb about how it's like the joy of kings?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the glory of God. It's like Proverbs 25, too. It's like the glory of God to conceal a matter, and it's the glory of kings to get. It's like, uh, proverbs 25 too. Yeah, it's like the glory of god to conceal a matter, and it's the glory of kings to search out a matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah there's something so um, they're so honoring from god toward us to invite us into absolutely. Why not see your dreams as riddles that god will meet you in the midst? Of yeah, I mean, and hey, there's lots of room, and this happened to me many times.
Speaker 2:I'll bring a dream that seemed really intense and like, like, right now I'm furrowing my brow as I'm talking to anthony but like I've brought troubling dreams to god and I literally have had god and friends get me to chill out a little bit, like no, there really isn't anything in that dream from me for you, dan, I actually would like you to settle down a little bit and I need you to come away, have some quiet time with me, because you're troubled right now and all that dream really did was show you. Because you're troubled right now and all that dream really did was show you you're kind of letting anxiety get its hooks in you right now and I want to help you. I want to help you, minister to you, and there really is no directional meaning in the dream except I need to come away and have some time with God so we can calm my soul down and bring me some peace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so good. And again, like we would again back to the biblical worldview. We hit this a little bit like even imagery in the Bible, right, the idea of like what we were talking about the sun, moon and stars, the barley, the seven fat cows.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking of them, the seven thin cows, joseph. Yeah, the seven fat cows. I was just thinking of them, the seven thin cows. This is with Joseph.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and you know even some of the imagery that Daniel had about the statue and the layers in the statue with you know bronze and iron and you know and stone. Yeah, those things are like. At least we may never have and probably won't have the same dreams that they had, but they had dreams. There is a very clear like yes, there are times when your dreams can be sort of explicit.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:The thing they mean is what they mean.
Speaker 2:Right. You see a time on the clock Right which is a reference to a scripture verse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah right absolutely, but oftentimes and again, I think this is such an important thing for people to like at least realize maybe someone's having an aha moment, but realize the riddle nature of dreams I love how I love how you know that you connected that to parables, because that's kind of the thing it's like. Okay, so Jesus is going like again, I think. Okay. So back to the fact that God is the great storyteller right.
Speaker 1:We're even a part of this great story, that's on the great story of history. So we can tell stories because God is the great story.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right, so again these are the things.
Speaker 1:So God is weaving these, giving you these little narratives, these little gifts that are little narratives as and veiled in some mystery. You know about the proverb there Like he's, it's his glory to give you those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And he's not hiding them for you. You know, that's the, that's the twist on that, or that's the, not the twist, but the kicker in that verse. Right, it's his glory to give them to you, right he's not trying to keep it from you.
Speaker 2:He's not trying to keep them from you, and it's our glory to search those things out, right?
Speaker 1:So if there's a mystery in there, that's where our, you know, there's glory in there for us to begin to dig those things up. And I thought again, despite the bizarreness and sometimes kind of bizarre meanings of dreams, there are some principles and maybe we can just cover this as we start to land the plane here a little bit.
Speaker 2:But I mean we can't just do this all day, and I feel like If we could just get somebody to bring lunch into us, we could just sit here all day.
Speaker 1:But again, like there is a way, and then you know this is part of sort of prophetic protocol, I guess is to understand that there is. You know, there are three parts to how God speaks there's the revelation, there's the interpretation and then there's the application. And some of those again, as you shared a little bit, you may not get all of those. Some of them might mean that, okay, I'm, you know, hey guys, I'm kind of I had this dream feel significant. What do you? What do you guys? What are you guys hearing?
Speaker 2:in your hearts about that dream.
Speaker 1:And so to understand that, okay, there's the dream, there's the bizarre thing, there's the wild scenes that have unfolded in your sleep, and then, and then it's the journey of trying to uncover their meaning. The meaning, yeah. And then it's like okay, the application is like so now, what do I do with it?
Speaker 2:And I would say largely in my life.
Speaker 1:The application isn't that I need to go and do something. It's. The application is now I need to go and do something. The application is now I need to actually talk to God about the meaning oh.
Speaker 2:I like that that.
Speaker 1:He's suddenly speaking to me about something specific in my life right that he wants to bring out. He wants to sort of nudge me in a given direction. Right, it isn't necessarily that I need to move across the country or anything. It's actually about who he's making me into. Oh, I love that yeah. Right, so I would say the application is like there are maybe some directive dreams, and I know that lots of people have at times had directive dreams where they actually have to go and do something beyond themselves right, they have to go to this place and do this thing, whether that's five minutes down the road or like halfway across the country.
Speaker 1:There are those kinds of things. But I guess the one thing is that we can often tell. But I guess the one thing is that we can often tell back to the revelation part, or at least the interpretation part, is to maybe these are helpful handles, that this is how I sort of do things. And again, take this how are you feeling? How did you feel? Because sometimes in dreams there could be a very scary thing going on, but in the dream you're not scared at all. Right, right, Right.
Speaker 2:So yes, so it'd be a very important detail.
Speaker 1:It's a very important like how are you feeling Colors and the details of what you were doing? Yes, but as soon as you like the scene that was unfolding. Like I remember. You know, there was a dream that I had where someone was at the front of a room and it was a classroom and it was like an important meeting.
Speaker 1:Someone's at the front of the room and I was sitting at the back and all around me was was like people who are sort of disrespecting Right. They were actually talking while this person was trying to lead. Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And you know again, that's in and of itself can see, I could get annoyed at okay. So there was, there was people, but as I zoomed back about what kinds of things were happening, as I zoomed out and say what was happening, well, I have a leader who was trying to do something.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I had people at the back of the room who were sort of being disrespectful of that authority in that dream. So as I zoomed back, that suddenly became clearer to me that it wasn't about the room, it wasn't about the leader, it wasn't about even where I was, and maybe it was like I was at the room I was actually paying attention to less so to the leader, but more paid paying attention to the people who were not honoring authority. Right, right.
Speaker 1:So so so in in that, in that little explanation you can start to see. Okay, so it isn't about the, the specific details, right that, it is about themes and narratives yeah, so it might be how you're interacting with the whole scene.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, that's the more important issue, right, right yeah totally so.
Speaker 1:just that's a quick so revelation interpretation and application.
Speaker 2:That is gold. I don't even know where we first got that from, but I love it. That has been so helpful and I just want to throw in here that ought to be very encouraging to people who have never really begun to steward their dreaming. Really begun to steward their dreaming is to say well, just why don't you wade into it knowing, don't worry about the interpretation or application for now.
Speaker 1:Oh, a hundred percent. Just have a season of just enjoy what happens, Just enjoy.
Speaker 2:These are the dreams I'm having and if you have a trusted person you can share with, do it. Anthony and I are both open to people reaching out and saying hey, could I share a dream with you? People who've had some experience with the interpretation and the application.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just you can learn to do that, but for now, just enjoy what's, what's the actual experience I'm having in my dreams, mark it down, taking some of the heat off, with knowing I don't have to get the interpretation and the application right away, exactly and like yeah, Could I?
Speaker 1:could I just say that, as you're dipping the dipping your toe into this whole adventure that God loves, that you've opened the door, that you know again like we can get a little wrapped up and a little angsty about getting the answer. Yes, right, and that God. But God loves the fact that you've shifted your heart in this way. Yes, right, but God loves the fact that you've shifted your heart in this way. Yes, you've turned your heart to search out a matter and there's glory in there, whether you immediately get the meaning or not. Right, that God loves that, that you've given yourself to trying to hear God better.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Trying to dig into the deeper meaning of how God might be speaking to you, and I would say, just to encourage people, that it isn't always about finding the answer, but it is about, for sure, about the heart posture that actually seeks to understand Right, right, and I know humans can be results-oriented, that we can say, well, I didn't get, and so I feel like a failure if I didn't figure it all out, whatever. That's not the point. The point is relationship. The point is communication. The point is putting your heart in a posture to seek to know God better. And when you do that, regardless and again, trusting in the faithfulness and the sovereignty of God, when you do that, you actually create this, you know, not create this. You get the, you create a space to grow, for sure, but you actually experience the pleasure of God. Yes, and simply by shifting your heart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and seeking to God?
Speaker 1:Yes, and simply by shifting your heart and seeking to understand Right, and so I think that's I just want that to encourage people like, okay, so you've got this far, congratulations, yeah. But also, but also really just this idea of like I just think that people, if you begin, start down the road I'm not an expert and I know, dan, that you would say that you're not an expert. And there aren't experts out there. Again, this is the whole thing. It is about connection.
Speaker 1:It is about posturing your heart to understand. It is about seeking to know God better and hearing Him better, and if you do that, I think this will go well for you I'd find you know this will go well, because god loves. You know, as we do this, god loves that he loves that. Yes, you know that that we would turn our hearts and we would seek to understand how he's and he speaks, and so love it, maybe, uh maybe we can just maybe we can pray for people today.
Speaker 1:Just just that, god, would you know. Yes, yeah, I'll just take two seconds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do it and pray yeah.
Speaker 1:God. I just want to thank you, lord, that dreams are from you.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I want to thank you, Lord, that you also hold the meaning of it, lord, and you hold their interpretation, god. So I just thank you, god, for that. I thank you that you've chosen this way to speak to humanity, that you speak to me, you speak to whoever's listening, lord, in this way, god, and I thank you, lord, that you've unveiled this in your word as well.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Lord, and I thank you for the truth of that and God, I just pray here in these last few moments, God, that you would give grace to anyone, Lord, who would start down this journey of hearing you, Lord, of trying to crack open the mysteries of dreams.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I just want to just thank you, lord, that you are God of love, and I love you for this, that you, I just have this sense of your caring fatherness, like your benevolence towards anyone who would want to go down this road, and so, lord, I just pray that hearts would be encouraged.
Speaker 1:Lord, I pray for people, the grace with people for people to take on the adventure of discovering you in this way. And so, lord, I just bless that God. I just say God, I pray for grace for dreams to increase in people. God, I pray for grace, lord, for people to steward their dreams, to begin to write them down or voice, memo them or record them somehow and share them, even talk about them with their family and their friends. I pray for grace to just steward them well and God, I just thank you, lord, for the fruit that's going to come from our dream life as we go down this road. So I just want to bless you, I want to thank you, lord. We just ask for more, god, I pray that people would be really, really encouraged in Jesus' name, amen, amen, love it, amen.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a wrap on this episode. It's been a privilege to have you as an honored guest. As we all learn to hear God better.
Speaker 1:If your time with us has been encouraging and you think this conversation will be helpful to others, we would love it if you could share this podcast with the people around you.
Speaker 2:Until next time.
