Beyond Your Wildest Dreams!

We hear it often, but how wild are your dreams?

If they’re anything like mine, they can be quite scary ... more of a nightmare. Several times I’ve dreamed that I was with someone who figured prominently in my past.  I’ve been quite sure who she was even though, considered independently, neither her face nor the style and colour of her hair match those of historic fact.  Whatever it was that made me so positive about her identity is lost in the depths of sleep but I have no doubt that, when that dream returns, I shall be just as certain that it’s the same person.

Some say that dreams are heavenly messages, like those we read of in the Bible that often feature the appearance of angels.  While I wouldn’t discount this possibility, it’s my understanding that most of our dreams are simply a random accumulation of snippets from a variety of episodes in our lives - both recent and long ago - that the resting brain somehow allows to drift to the surface.  If there is any coherence or apparent story to these, as likely as not it's woven by our wakeful minds around those particular aspects of the dream that we remember at the moment of waking.

An endless store of human experience is to be found in the Psalms.  I’m drawing on two particular extracts here.  “How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures” (Ps. 104:24).  Succeeding verses tell of God’s creation of animals, the sun and moon, and living things swimming in the seas; I like playing with words and this verse reminds me that the earth, and all that fills it, is God’s creation.

Another psalm asks, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there” (Ps. 139:7-8).  God is all-embracing; He is everywhere.  Even if sometimes we don’t acknowledge it, we can’t avoid being in His presence.

It’s usually at the times when we don’t give a thought to God, and His desire to be involved in our lives, that things go wrong.  We make wrong decisions, follow bad advice, and so on.  The hymn What a friend we have in Jesus, which includes the line ‘take it to the Lord in prayer’, is usually sung to the tune ‘Converse’.  So, conversely, if we bring our needs to Him in prayer, He will provide for them in whatever way is for our greatest good.

Back to dreams, then: the whole of life’s experience, stored away in our memory, is available to our sleeping minds.  From this rich store come the components that make up our dreams.  Similarly, the whole of our life is God’s creation and subject to His influence if only we will allow it.

Next time you wake up with a dream still in your mind, try to think beyond its content, however wild, and remember the greatness of God’s place in your life.