The story of Joseph, and many other places in the Bible, show us that the Holy Spirit is working even while you sleep.
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One of the most common modern misperceptions about the Holy Spirit is that the ruach maintains office hours. We expect that when we pray, the Spirit is waiting to guide us. We believe that when we make our hearts attentive, the Spirit is ready to speak to us. We trust that the Spirit is working whenever we’re awake. But the moment our head hits the pillow and we sign off for the night, we assume the Spirit goes on break.
Yet the Spirit we meet throughout the Scriptures is a night owl. The ruach not only works during the day but is also nocturnal, wildly active after the sun goes down. The Spirit we encounter in the Bible often comes to us beneath beams of moonlight and whispers to us in those unguarded moments while we’re dreaming.
Consider King Solomon. He receives one of God’s most generous invitations through a dream: “Ask me what you wish, and I will give it to you.” Solomon asks for wisdom; when he wakes up, he receives divine insight and so much more (1 Kings 3:5–15). Then there’s the self-absorbed, power-hungry Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. He receives a spate of dreams that remind him he’s not God. And let’s not forget Daniel, who interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams and has a few of his own (Daniel 2; 4; 7:1–14).
A passage in the book of Joel provides another confirmation: When the Spirit is poured out, the aging will receive dreams and the youth will receive visions (Joel 2:28–32). Peter affirms this in the second chapter of Acts (Acts 2:17–18).
A celestial symphony of dreams adorns Christ’s birth, too. Joseph experiences multiple dreams: They assure him of Mary’s miraculous pregnancy, provide precise timing for the family’s escape to Egypt, and detail when and where to return home (Matthew 1:20–23; 2:13–14, 19–20, 22–23). A divine dream even directs the magi’s travels.
Near the end of Jesus’s life, Pilate’s wife receives a warning about Jesus’s innocence through a dream. She sends word to her husband: “Have nothing to do with him!” Pilate listens and can’t get off the judge’s seat fast enough, washing his hands of the matter once and for all (Matthew 27:19–24).
The theme recurs like the skipping of a warped vinyl record: God is at work, even as we sleep. The Bible contains a long history of people hearing from the Spirit while they were “sawing logs.” Often during the daylight hours, our bodies are busy and our minds are full. Perhaps the Spirit uses our slumber to say to us things we cannot receive as readily while we are awake. It makes sense that the Spirit would work in us during the hours when the noise of life hushes.
Whatever the reason, we’ve inherited a rich scriptural history of divine dreaming. But we often miss it, don’t we? Maybe we’re unaware of this important way the Spirit works because we’re simply not paying attention in our waking hours. Could it be that we don’t know how to respond? Or perhaps we’re just skeptical.
Joseph: The Bible’s Star Dreamer
One of the most notable dreamers in the Bible was a seventeen-year-old named Joseph, who enjoyed the lavish affection of his doting father, Jacob. As with any siblings, his brothers had a nose for parental favoritism and were repelled by its odiousness (Genesis 37; 39–50).
Whatever blinded Joseph to the severity of his situation — naiveté, self-absorption, or an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex — we’ll never know, but Joseph’s emotional intelligence left much to be desired. The teenager had a proclivity for being a tattletale, a know-it-all, and a boor when it came to other people’s feelings. Maybe he inherited some of those traits from his dad.
When Jacob gifts Joseph a high-end designer coat with a rainbow of embellishments, he wears it with swagger, failing to notice that his brothers are still dressed in hand-me-downs. No wonder his siblings want nothing to do with him.
But the Spirit does.
One night Joseph has a dream about gathering wheat in the fields. His bundle stands up, while those of his brothers take a long bow toward his. If Joseph had possessed a smidge more spiritual maturity, he might have tucked that dream away and waited to see how life unfolded. Alas, little Joe can’t help himself at breakfast the next morning. He blurts out the whole dream to his siblings, who are appropriately miffed.
We might be more forgiving of Joseph’s tactlessness in handling this first dream if he didn’t become a repeat offender. A sleep or two later, the same theme echoes through yet another dream: the sun and moon and eleven stars bow down directly to Joseph. Unable to read the room, Joseph describes the dream’s images to his siblings with wild hand gestures and what feels to him like contagious enthusiasm, but he only fans the flames of jealousy and rage in their hearts. When his parents catch wind, even they are incredulous.
Joseph’s Education and Maturation
Sometimes I wonder how Joseph’s life might have turned out if he’d been more considerate or more prayerful or had asked for wisdom regarding his dreams. Perhaps the story unfolds as it does to encourage us that even when we fumble the interpretation or sharing of a dream, the Spirit can still fulfill it.
Joseph’s brothers soon plot his demise. They throw him into a pit, ready to walk away and leave him to die, until one of the brothers brainstorms an inventive side hustle: Selling Joseph to human traffickers will produce some coin. To hide their duplicity, they take their brother’s luxury jacket and splatter it with goat’s blood, then spin a tale to Jacob about wild hyenas chewing Joseph to bits.
The brothers never suspect those Spirit-infused dreams are making the long, grueling journey toward coming true. The traders bring Joseph to Egypt and resell the lad to Potiphar, a captain in Pharaoh’s guard. After unsolicited sexual advances and false accusations by Potiphar’s handsy wife, Joseph does some serious time behind bars.
During Joseph’s time in jail, we learn that in addition to giving him dreams, the Spirit has gifted him the ability to interpret them too. Joseph recognizes the symbolism of his fellow prisoners’ dreams as pretty straightforward, and the messages as a divine gift, even when one of them delivers hard news. Word of his dream interpretation skills soon spreads. So when Pharaoh has a pair of baffling dreams himself, he hears about this prisoner who can unravel their meanings. He calls for Joseph, who promptly changes out of his orange coveralls into something more fitting for a royal audience.
Standing before the most powerful leader of the Egyptian empire, Joseph explains that Pharaoh’s pair of dreams foretells the same future. In one dream, seven plump cows are devoured by seven skinny cows; in the other, seven lush heads of grain are swallowed by seven thin, dry heads of grain. Joseph elucidates the symbolic message with precision and clarity: Seven years of superabundance will be followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh assigns Joseph to head up the Emergency Response Team, and before he knows it, the favored son of Jacob becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man.
Joseph knows that God has been working in his life, but he’s not so sure about his brothers’ lives. During the colossal famine, Joseph’s starving siblings appear in Pharaoh’s court, desperate for help. Joseph devises a clever test for his brothers and discovers they’ve all grown up in their own ways. Perhaps no one has matured more than himself.
The once-insensitive Joseph now weeps. The once-a-tattletale son now emerges as the family protector and savior. The same Joseph who once grew excited over his brothers’ groveling now grants them pardon and provision. Not only is this the story of how the Hebrew people are rescued from famine and death, it’s also the story of how Joseph is saved from himself.
An Invitation to Transformation
The dreams that came to a seventeen-year-old boy long ago are fulfilled in ways that only God could have orchestrated. The wild saga makes me wonder if maybe, just maybe, when the Spirit speaks through a dream, it’s intended not just for information or confirmation, but as an invitation to transformation.
Maybe you’ve never considered the role the Spirit played in Joseph’s life and dreams, but the Spirit was certainly there hovering over the chaos the whole time. Ironically, the first person to notice the Spirit’s involvement is the most unlikely character of all. Awestruck by Joseph’s dream interpretation, Pharaoh declares:
“Can we find anyone like this man, in whom the Spirit of God abides?” (Genesis 41:38 BSB)
Though we don’t know all the details, somehow the ruach — yes, the Spirit — has been working in Joseph’s life through dreams and dream interpretation for most of his life. Scripture records only two of Joseph’s dreams, but I wonder if he had many more. Joseph is a person who assumes and expects that dreams are a normal means the Spirit uses to speak. By his readiness to interpret the dreams of his fellow prisoners and Pharaoh, Joseph reveals his belief that this isn’t the way the Spirit speaks only to him, but this is a way the Spirit speaks.
Could the Spirit Be Speaking to You?
When you hear these biblical accounts of dreaming, you may feel uncomfortable or strange. Perhaps you’ve never considered that the Spirit might whisper through a dream to you or to someone you know.
Maybe it’s time to start looking for a pattern, not just in Bible stories but perhaps in your own life as well. Consider that the Spirit might already have been speaking to you in the night hours. What could you be missing? And when you do dream, how can you tell whether the Spirit wants to speak to you through it?
Adapted from The God You Need to Know: Experience the Holy Spirit’s Power and Presence Today by Margaret Feinberg.
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The post The Bible Shows How the Holy Spirit Speaks to Us in Dreams [FREE 5-Day Devotional] appeared first on Bible Gateway News & Knowledge.