I have always been intrigued by sleep. Why did God make us to need our slumber? It seems like such a waste of time! Think of all the extra things we could do if one-third of our life was not spent resting up for the remaining two-thirds of our existence.
And when we sleep we dream. Granted, we don’t remember too many of our dreams. Why? We dream mainly when we are in deep sleep, and our dreams are forgotten before we awake.
However, every now and then we wake up quite suddenly and a dream sticks with us. If it is a really good “movie of the mind” we may want to go back to sleep long enough to see how it ends. But if it is a bad dream, a nightmare, we not only don’t want to know the ending, but we are troubled by it throughout the day.
Consider: The average American dreams for over 25 years of his or her life. If we have 5 dreams per night (which is the norm), that comes out to 136,000 dreams in the course of a lifetime.
Most often “dreaming” is used as a metaphor. George Bernard Shaw said: “There are two great tragedies in life – one is to not get what you have dreamed for – and the second is to get it!” Remember King Midas? He got his wish and lost his beloved daughter. His dream turned into a nightmare.
This is happening more and more these days to all of us…
A marriage, begun in hope, is in turmoil.
A child, once the apple of your eye, is a source of heartbreak.
A job, once so secure, hangs by a slender thread.
One’s health, once so robust, is failing.
One’s hopes, once so bright, are fading by the day.
Your economic position, once headed for a small but secure retirement, has tanked.
In the Bible, Book of Genesis, there’s a wonderful story about a real dreamer by the name of Joseph. Until he was 17 his dreams were on the fast track, heading toward certain attainment. And then in a matter of 24 hours everything fell apart. His dream became a terrible nightmare.
He was thrown in a pit. Then he went to prison. Finally, he was made Prince of Egypt. But even then the dream of his youth, that he would save his family from destruction, was not realized. Undoubtedly he reasoned that “this is as good as it gets”. It had taken him from 17 to 39 to get where he was. Why push it?
But Joseph refused to doubt in the darkness of his nightmare what God had promised him in the delight of his dream. His situation provides us with five responses to what we can do when our own dream becomes a nightmare, too.
1. Make sure the dream that has gone “south” was actually from God! We all make mistakes. We can talk ourselves into choices that originate more from the well of our desires than from God’s will. But if we know that what God has impressed upon is real then…
2. Make a commitment to be faithful and true while the dream unfolds. The nightmare segment will not last forever. What God has promised He will perform. Don’t yield to the temptation to rewrite the dream. (A night with Potiphar’s wife will only make the nightmare worse!) Don’t become bitter. (Name you child born during the nightmare stage Manasseh, “God has made me to forget”). Look with faith to the future.
3. Give glory to God while the dream that has become a nightmare reverts back to something positive. Don’t settle for 90% of the original dream. Wait until your Benjamin shows up. Remember that you saw 11 brother bowing in you dream, not 10. Don’t sell God’s will short. Hold out for everything that He has promised to you.
4. Become a dream manager, even while in the midst of your own nightmare. Joseph helped both the King’s baker and Pharaoh while he was still a slave. The danger of a dream morphing into a nightmare is that we become cynical. Our attitude can hurt and hinder others when we lose our perspective. If you haven’t been healed, don’t stop praying for those who are infirm! If you a lacking, don’t stop interceding for those who are in want. Be an encourager in the midst of your nightmare.
5. Leave a heritage of new dreams (not nightmares) for the next generation. When Joseph died he told his heirs to not give him a state funeral in Egypt. He asked for his bones to be kept in a box, in readiness for the Exodus! After a four hundred year nightmare, his last dream was became reality on the night when Israel was granted freedom. Although the Dreamer was long dead, the dream still lived on – and still does. Read Exodus 13:19.
“Our Father and Our God, help us to dream big dreams. And when our dreams become nightmares, as they are wont to do, may we not doubt in the darkness what You revealed to us in at noontide. May our faith be focused, not on ourselves (for we are weak), but upon You. May the One who gives dreams, even in times like these, be rendered all of the glory. Amen.”
