We get the dimensions of dreams in Matthew’s Gospel. It happens three times in the Christmas story. Once to the wise men, who were warned by the angel not to return to Jerusalem. But another route to their country. It seems the angel is warning that Herod had other designs. Maybe the lives of those men would have been in danger. God desired that their message about what they saw was to reach their country rather than meet a sorry end in Jerusalem.

Joseph was also visitted by an angel in a dream, to accept Jesus as the divine seed of the Holy Spirit, and also in the subsequent dream which the angel  warned him of danger to Jesus, and fled to Egypt. It seems that this was to fulfil some kind of prophetic significance…as the Scripture prophesies “out of Egypt I brought out my Son”. May be a veiled reference that as Israel was a shadow of Christ, that Christ too had to make the journey to the land of promise too.

The Lord uses dreams to warn us of impending danger, in times when our spirit is not too sensitive to other forms of divine direction.

In my own walk, God has used dreams to warn me of current and future events. Even those restricted to the realm of eternity.

Christmas is a time of birthing but also of warning. 1 Timothy 4:1 spells out the author of warnings, who is the Holy Spirit. He warns us of the modern times when the full apostate faith becomes manifest, deceiving many.

Warnings by dreams require our immediate attention, because they must imply utter urgency in our response. Our realignment.

This Christmas of 2018 must mean we also look to the final week of the year, and our inevitable nature and thought processes go to the apprehension at the turning and transition into the new year. There is much uncertainty in the earth, and I believe there are forces at work ,like Herod, who desire to find the defenceless souls, who are moving in God and extinguish their fire by any means.

This sense of uncertainty will definitely develop into fear. And then paranoia.

In these two excerpts of one episode of Star Trek The Next Generation we get the necessary backdrop of what is known as paranoia.

This lady admiral is convinced that their is a conspiracy on the Enterprise, and goes out to prove it. There is no proof until she launches an attack on Captain Picard himself. What I desire to demonstrate here is Captain Picard’s speeches in each, to get the idea of what I mean about Paranoia in the fragile fabric of society.

His speech in this second part, is just what I refer. It seems that this generation is just as sensitive and suspicious as any other. And there are those who flourish in it, as we see that decisions that are made in this climate are not those made with objectivity but with plain paranoia. It is this that sparks off great revolutions and wars. No different for our time. However, for those of us who have Jesus in our hearts, we will have the advantage that we will be always one step ahead of the enemy.

It seems that in this time of noise, confusion, upheavals, disasters, dreams can be sometimes the only channel by which God communicates with us. May we ask God for extra sensitivity to discern the times. I surmise that 2019 will be just as precarious. Just as out of the ordinary as this year. We can guarantee as with our reference to Matthew’s Gospel in the Christmas story that dreams and warnings will guide us to the place where we fulfil His will if we obey.

Shalom.