markdroberts: guest bloggers

Guidance Through Dreams and Visions

Part 12 of the series: How Does God Guide Us? 
Posted for Wednesday, January 31, 2007

So far in this series I've shown that God guides us through circumstances, Scripture, community, and reason. Those who especially like my last post on reason might find themselves a bit uncomfortable with today's post.

As I begin, I must admit that the subject of guidance through dreams and visions does not reflect my personal experience to any great extent. In fact, I feel most comfortable among Christians who are guided by thinking, not by visions and dreams. But as a biblically-committed Christian, I must not limit God's activity by my own limited experience, no matter how tempting that may be. Rather, I must let the Bible speak. For this reason I recognize the possibility of spiritual guidance through dreams and visions. Whether we are sleeping or awake, the Holy Spirit can reveal God's will to us through inspired visual images.

Throughout the Bible God communicates with his people through visionary experiences. In Genesis 15 the Lord speaks to Abraham in a vision (Gen 15:1). A few chapters later God speaks to the gentile king Abimelech in a dream (Gen 20:3). So it goes throughout the Old Testament stories. The New Testament begins on a similar note, with an angel appearing in a dream to Joseph, telling him that his fiancée is pregnant by the Holy Spirit (Matt 1:20). Not long afterwards Joseph receives direction to go to Egypt as, once again, an angel speaks to him in a dream (Matt 2:13).

If we were to think that things like this happened only for biblical characters, the promise of Joel corrects that misconception. Several centuries before Christ, the Lord spoke through this Jewish prophet:

Then after I have poured out my rains again, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. In those days, I will pour out my Spirit even on servants, men and women alike (Joel 2:28-29).

Seven weeks after Jesus's resurrection, God poured out his Spirit as promised by Joel. Peter, preaching the first Christian sermon on the Jewish festival of Pentecost, quotes from Joel's prophecy to explain what has happened to the followers of Jesus who have just received the filling of the Spirit (Acts 2:16-21). The fulfillment of this prophecy at this time implies that Christians, both old and young, will experience divine guidance through dreams and visions.

The rest of the book of Acts illustrates this implication as the Holy Spirit guides the early Christians through extraordinary visual experiences. In Acts 16, for example, the Spirit at first speaks to Paul and Silas, telling them not to evangelize in the Roman provinces of Asia and Bithynia. Then Paul has a vision in the night, in which a man from northern Greece asks him, "Come over here and help us." The evangelists quickly leave for that region, believing that God has called them to preach there (Acts 19:6-10). Later on, when Paul's ministry in Corinth brought on Jewish wrath, God inspired and affirmed Paul through another vision:

One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and told him, “Don’t be afraid! Speak out! Don’t be silent! For I am with you, and no one will harm you because many people here in this city belong to me.” So Paul stayed there for the next year and a half, teaching the word of God (Acts 18:9-11)

Of course, as we have noted with respect to other forms of guidance, that which we derive from dreams and visions must also be tested by Scripture in the context of prayerful, reasonable Christian community. Throughout history, heretical theologies have often originated in the visions of their founders, visions inspired by something other than the Holy Spirit. The New Testament letter from Jude refers to false teachers as "dreamers" (Jude 1:8). But, for those of us inclined to exalt rationality far above visions, I daresay that most modern heresy stems from thinking, not dreaming.

I know a woman named Sandy who, years ago, had a dream in which she and her husband were missionaries in a city she had never heard of, in a country on the other side of the globe from where they were presently living. As she shared this dream with her husband and with her church, they all began to believe that Sandy had indeed heard from the Holy Spirit, even though she and her husband were not missionaries and the city revealed was in a country that prohibited the entrance of all missionaries. Years of patient discernment followed, as this couple sought to follow God's leading. He confirmed what Sandy had dreamed in hundreds of ways. Many, many years later, through a most amazing series of divine interventions, the dream was fulfilled, as they began to minister in the very city whose name had once revealed in a dream. A skeptic would scoffingly say that this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. But, knowing the journey of Sandy and her husband, I stand amazed at the grace of God who still speaks to us, as promised, through dreams and visions.

Yet this isn't all. In my next post I'll explore still another way in which God guides us.

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Guidance Through Reason

Part 11 of the series: How Does God Guide Us?
Posted for Tuesday, January 30, 2007

So far I've shown that God guides us through circumstances, Scripture, and community. In my last post I added that we can be guided through careful reasoning. I want to explain what I mean in this post.
Because the Spirit's guidance can be so marvelously miraculous at times, we can overlook or even disparage so-called "normal" processes of reasoning. Sometimes we even sit around like spiritual couch potatoes, waiting for some special gift of guidance while failing to use the gift of our minds, one of God's most amazing endowments to human beings.

God has given us powers of reason to be used for his purposes. Whether we utilize these powers to make medical discoveries, to teach Sunday school, or to discern God's will, God is honored when we use His good gifts for His glory. Moreover, the Spirit of God works in and through what can seem to us so natural and normal.

Some Christians assume a false dichotomy between natural and supernatural activities, believing that God's hand can be seen only in the supernatural or the extraordinary. But this distinction underestimates God's presence throughout the natural world. The Son of God, through whom God created the world, "sustains the universe by the mighty power of his command" (Heb 1:3). The Lord is present and active in the "normal" affairs of the universe, in that which seems ordinary to us, even as He is present and active in that which is spectacularly unusual. So, when we use our ordinary human reasoning for the purpose of seeking God's will, the Spirit can and does guide us.

The problem with this facet of spiritual guidance lies in the sin-induced corruption of our natural reason. Before we knew Christ, we were "alienated from God and enemies of God in our thinking" (Col 1:21, my translation). When we were reconciled with God through Christ, our sin was forgiven and our minds began to be renewed. But that renewal is an ongoing process that continues throughout our lives as we learn to think in new ways. No longer are we stuck in futile, human ways of thinking (Eph 4:17, Col 2:18). We can begin to think in godly ways because we have been given the "mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:16). When we allow the Spirit of God to be active in every facet of our lives, then our thinking will also be guided by the Spirit (Rom 8:5-6).

As we devote ourselves to the key relationships of the Christian life, spending time in fellowship with God and God's people, we will start to think more like God and less like a captive of our corrupt culture. As God's written Word permeates our minds and hearts, we will treasure the things of God and think the thoughts of God. As we prayerfully ask the Lord to inspire our thinking, the Holy Spirit will lead us. Then we can have even greater confidence that our human reasoning, transformed by the Spirit to be more like what God intended it to be, will guide us in God's paths.

When our reasoning receives input from Scripture, and when it is something done in the context of Christian community, then the possibility of discerning God's will is greatly increased. Reason often allows us to make connections, taking in the various kinds of input that God is supplying. I would never suggest that reason alone is adequate for spiritual discernment, but it does supply a crucial link in the chain of divine guidance.

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