We know God speaks. But how does He do it?
If you follow us on YouTube, then you know we’ve already looked at several ways God can speak to us — including through our conscience, through the words of Jesus, and through the counsel of godly people. But there are other ways God has communicated with people throughout Scripture.
Two of the most fascinating are dreams and visions.
God Speaks Through Dreams and Visions
If you read the Bible, you’ll find that God regularly spoke to people through dreams and visions.
Think about Joseph’s famous dreams in Genesis. Or the prophetic dream concerning Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel. In the Gospels, Joseph was warned in a dream about Herod, and the wise men were warned in a dream not to return to Herod.
And when it comes to visions, we find examples throughout Scripture as well. Ezekiel and Daniel received extraordinary visions, while Paul experienced a life-changing vision on the road to Damascus.
These are just a few examples.
The point is simple: God has used dreams and visions to communicate with people.
And if God did it in biblical times, we shouldn’t automatically assume that He has stopped doing so today.
A Picture Can Say a Thousand Words
There is something interesting about both dreams and visions: they commonly involve pictures.
We often say that a picture is worth a thousand words. That can certainly be true when it comes to dreams and visions from God.
Sometimes the picture may be stationary, like a scene being shown to us. Other times, it may be more like a moving picture or even a movie.
The Book of Revelation provides a particularly striking example. John describes an extraordinary vision filled with images, symbols, scenes, and events.
But this brings us to something important.
Dreams and Visions Often Require Interpretation
If God communicates through pictures, we shouldn’t necessarily expect those pictures to explain themselves.
Dreams and visions often contain symbolism, which means they may require interpretation.
We see this repeatedly in Scripture. Joseph interpreted dreams. Daniel interpreted dreams and visions. Peter received a vision that initially confused him and only later understood what God was communicating through it.
So if you have a dream or vision that you believe may be from God, one of the first things to do is pray and ask God for understanding.
James 1:5 gives us a simple principle:
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God…”
Rather than immediately deciding what a dream means, we can ask God to help us understand it.
God May Challenge Our Prejudices
Why would God communicate through symbolism instead of simply telling us exactly what He wants us to know?
One possibility is that it can force us to slow down and think.
We all have a natural tendency to resist things that challenge our existing beliefs, preferences, and assumptions. When something conflicts with what we already think, we can quickly find reasons to dismiss it.
We can even try to “out-rationalize” God.
The Bible reminds us that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.
Dreams and visions can sometimes get around our immediate, knee-jerk reactions. They can cause us to stop and ask:
“What is God actually trying to show me?”
Consider Peter’s vision in Acts 10. Peter saw a sheet filled with animals that Jewish people traditionally considered unclean. God told him to kill and eat them.
Peter initially resisted.
But the vision wasn’t really about food.
God was challenging Peter’s assumptions about people — specifically, his understanding of who could be considered clean or unclean. The vision prepared Peter for something much bigger: the realization that God does not show favoritism and that the gospel was being extended to the Gentiles.
Sometimes God has to challenge our prejudices and presumptions before we are willing to hear what He is actually saying.
How Can We Test an Interpretation?
If we believe we’ve received a dream or vision from God, how do we know whether our interpretation is correct?
This is where the other ways God speaks can become important.
Throughout this series, we’ve looked at listening to God through:
- Our conscience
- The words of Jesus
- Godly counsel
These can help us test what we believe we have received.
For example, if your interpretation of a dream directly contradicts something Jesus clearly taught, that should be a major warning sign.
Jesus taught us to love our enemies.
So imagine someone has a dream and interprets it as God telling them that they should become more hateful toward the people who hate them.
That interpretation obviously conflicts with the teachings of Jesus.
The problem may not be the dream itself. The problem may be the interpretation.
This is why we shouldn’t simply assume that our first impression of a dream or vision is necessarily what God intended.
We need to seek understanding.
Are We Willing to Hear What God Says?
There is another issue that may be even more important than interpretation.
Are we actually willing to hear what God wants to tell us?
If we approach God looking only for confirmation of what we already want to believe, we may not be prepared to receive His message.
To hear God clearly, we have to be willing to let go of our own will.
That doesn’t mean abandoning reason or accepting every dream as a message from God. It means being willing to hear something that challenges us.
Sometimes the thing God wants to show us is precisely the thing we don’t want to hear.
If we are unwilling to change, unwilling to reconsider our assumptions, or unwilling to act on what God shows us, then even the clearest dream or vision may accomplish very little.
Pray Before You Sleep
So what can we actually do?
We can pray.
Before going to sleep, we can take time to pray and ask God to speak to us if He chooses to do so.
Likewise, we can take time to quiet our minds and seek God in prayer.
But there is an important condition:
We need to be willing to act on whatever God tells us.
There is little point in asking God to speak if we have already decided that we won’t listen.
The goal isn’t simply to have interesting dreams or extraordinary spiritual experiences.
The goal is to hear from God in a way that produces real change in our lives.
God Still Speaks
Dreams and visions are certainly not the only ways God communicates with people. Scripture gives us many examples of God speaking in different ways.
But dreams and visions are two of the ways we see Him communicating throughout the Bible.
If you have a dream or vision that you believe may be from God, don’t rush to interpret it according to your own assumptions.
Pray.
Ask for wisdom.
Compare your interpretation with the teachings of Jesus.
Seek godly counsel.
And, perhaps most importantly, ask yourself whether you are actually willing to hear what God is saying—even if it challenges what you currently believe.
Because sometimes the biggest obstacle to hearing from God isn’t that He isn’t speaking.
It’s that we’re not willing to hear.
Have you ever had a dream or vision that you believed was from God? How did you go about understanding or interpreting it?
