Practical Dream Interpretation Pt 3: Dreams that show us that it’s time for a major change

Still editing  the book (halfway through the final edit) and so I am publishing from my emergency reserve – the blogs that come from weeks when I write three but only want to publish one or two.

My son Matthew came to me with this dream yesterday morning and I was thrilled because it’s just a classic, straightforward communication from the Spirit (indeed, personal correction is, I find, the most common communication from the Spirit). I immediately knew what it meant and was able to relay that to him.

Why? Because I’ve had the same sort of dream many times and it always leads to something amazing. This is the sort of dream where, if we respond correctly, our lives will take a new and positive direction.

In the dream, Matthew walked into his bathroom and closed the door. It was dark but when he flipped on the light nothing happened. He tried everything he could but to no avail – he was totally in the dark.

I know, you’re either saying, “Big deal,” or you’re jumping up and down because you’ve had the same dream or something similar. It’s one of the most common types of dreams, as well as one of the best.

In dreams, bathrooms will often show us our spiritual state. The filthier the bathroom, the more work that needs to be done. Sometimes the bathroom will be filled with other people’s messes – which can either mean that we are inappropriately cleaning up after someone or that there are places of wounding in our lives, damages caused by someone else, that need to get cleaned up. In this case, Matthew didn’t notice anything about the bathroom so the cleanliness was not an important element.

Bathrooms, as I intimated above, are the places where we get cleaned up – but what happens when we are in the dark? Simply put, it means that there is something that needs to be taken care of but that we can’t see it ourselves no matter how hard we try. This is a special revelation from God that He is going to have to step in and reveal something that we generally don’t want to know about ourselves. We all have these sorts of disconnects in our lives where we think we are hot stuff and we end up being kind of a hot mess instead.

The advice I gave Matthew is this – pray for that revelation no matter how much it hurts or how embarassing it might be. Being given the gift of seeing a truth about himself so young is an opportunity I never had. I was twenty nine before I started having such dreams, and he is being blessed at fourteen. I also told him that when he finds out what the character flaw is, to not ignore it or turn his back on it – God only shows us things about ourselves when we are mature enough to get it dealt with and at the moment when He is most willing to work with us on it. Unlike people, who don’t wait for the most opportune time but generally spring as soon as they are irritated enough, God patiently waits until the perfect opportunity.

Matthew prayed the prayer and last night he had another dream which gave him another piece of the puzzle, encouraging him to pray again for the full understanding of what in his life needs cleaned up.

You know, God loves it when we respond to His promptings and even though it is painful when we are being shown our faults, Matthew is really encouraged by the fact that the Spirit really is communicating with him. He has always wanted this to happen, and now he is learning the benefits as well as the price of hearing from God. He’s discovering that the Spirit is a whole lot more about correcting us than showing us cool stuff.

I will add that I had one of these very dreams just last night, but in the middle of it I realized I was dreaming. There was a person there that I could actually talk to and so I said, “Please, tell me what’s wrong with me, whatever it is, I don’t care. I am willing to do anything to fix this.” I don’t remember what he told me, although I listened intently in the dream, but upon awaking  i had a deeper understanding of why I do certain things and why that needs to change. Painful, but good. The bathroom in my dream was spotless – in fact it was a house full of practically spotless bathrooms, I was the one who needed cleaned up on the outside. It’s a good thing to know, in this life, what can be fixed while there is still time to do so.