A Dream Journal (1 John 4:1)

Many years ago, I kept a dream journal. It was a notebook on my nightstand next to my bed. Whenever I awoke in the morning, I immediately wrote down as much as I could recall of my dream. This was a necessary task because within a few minutes of awakening, I often forgot most if not all of the dream.

I kept this journal for nearly a month and I observed some interesting patterns. Certain themes kept recurring, sometimes in consecutive dreams and other times, separated by a few nights. Certain characters and locations also kept recurring. It was eerie. I began to see these themes and characters in my waking hours. I began to wonder if these dreams were actually premonitions. Was I tapping into some hidden and untapped psychic energy? As I sought to make sense of these dreams, I wondered if I was influencing the dreams? What if the very action of observing and contemplating my dreams was warping this dream journal into something that was contrived? But an even more sinister thought crept in, what if these dreams were really an attack from Satan, urging me to rely more upon these dreams as some divine revelation? Was this a simple psychology experiment or was I edging into the occult, wishing to see the future? Was there any way to know?

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

1 John 4:1 (NKJV)

God communicated with many of the great saints of the Bible through dreams. I believe God can still speak to us through dreams. However we now have the Bible as God’s complete revelation to us through the Holy Spirit. The Bible makes it very clear. I must hold every revelation, whether through prophets or a dream, up to the Word of God and test it.

By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

1 John 4:2-3 (NKJV)

Any dream I have that does not honor Jesus Christ is not from God. In my dream journal, it was clear that the dreams did not honor God nor did it encourage godly behavior within myself.

Perhaps someday God will give me a revelation through a dream. If He does, I will know it by holding the dream to the light and revelation of God’s Word.

Amen!

Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.