Recently I dreamed the lights on my Christmas tree suddenly went out. Alarmed, I called out for help. As I awakened, I immediately understood the meaning of my dream. I knew what God was trying to show me.
Most dreams convey their messages using images, pictures, and metaphors in a figurative and imaginative way. Unfamiliar with symbolic language, our Western intellects are challenged—we want to take our dreams literally. But can you imagine taking the following dreams at face value?
- While spying on an enemy camp, Gideon overheard an enemy soldier telling his dream of a loaf of barley bread rolling into camp, crushing their tent. The soldier interpreted the bread as symbolic of a rout of his army by Gideon’s tiny army. When Gideon heard this, his faith rose up and he proceeded to defeat Israel’s enemy in battle (Judges 7:13-25).
- The Pharaoh of Egypt dreamed he stood by the Nile River. Up came seven fat, handsome cows, followed by seven bedraggled, starving cows who ate the fat cows (Genesis 41:4-21). Joseph, a man intimately familiar with God’s dream language, recognized the cows were a symbolic representation of the Egyptian economy. His wise counsel saved many lives in the Egyptian kingdom.
- Renowned author Catherine Marshall LeSourd (1914-1983) dreamed of a stinking head of a woman sitting on a pedestal in her living room. She says that God was showing her she relied too much on her intellect, instead of faith in her heart and the leading of the Holy Spirit (Something More: In Search of a Deeper Faith).
God obscures his messages
The Bible says God who deliberately obscures His messages in dark sayings —puzzles, enigmas, knotted messages to be unraveled, like a proverb or riddle (see Num. 12:6-8). When Jesus walked the earth, he said pretty much the same thing:
I speak to them in parables, because, while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand (Matt. 13:13).
Author Ralph Nault suggests God deliberately does this because He wants to reach our heart: “Dreams use a symbolic type of language that speaks directly to my heart, bypassing my mind and intellect, in a way that God can get through to me without my logic and reason getting in the way.”
But many people in the Western world have lost touch with religious symbolic experience. De-symbolized, they do not know how to allow the symbolic material in their dreams—or in the Bible—come alive with meaning. The result: a head knowledge of God, rather than a heart knowledge.
Religious symbolic experience
God is able to speak directly to us through symbolic experiences. Jesus relies upon it to convey eternal truths. Why? Because religious symbolic experience is capable of empowering us with vision and purpose, mediating the presence of God and imparting spiritual gifts, revelation, and healing to us.
Alexandrian bishop, Basil the Great (4th C) understood this: “The enigmas in dreams have a close affinity to those things which are signified in an allegoric or hidden sense in the Scriptures … since the force of reason by itself is not powerful enough for getting at truth.”
In Dreams and Spiritual Growth: A Judeo-Christian Way of Dream Work, the authors say, “a symbol refers to any dream image which evokes an emotional response, either during the dream or after it. … It is the energy inherent in a symbol that causes it to catch our attention.”
Charged with emotional energy, a symbol becomes a message capable of delivering a profound religious idea or concept through our senses—imparting a religious symbolic experience.
When we awaken with a dream, we pray: “God, what do you want me to see?”
Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God?” – Genesis 40:8
Light the Christmas tree
For me, the Christmas tree is a symbol of the eternal aspect of my life, my spirit. The lights symbolize the “Light of the World,” Jesus Christ, the tree of life, born in Bethlehem.
This is why we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ—there is hope that we can receive something of the light and life of God into our lives.
The meaning of my dream: I had lost touch with Jesus Christ, the tree of life. I was not keeping my faith active, applying it from one situation to another in my life. Thankfully, my lights are back on!
For You light my lamp; The Lord my God illumines my darkness – Psalm 18:28