Guidance on Handling Dreams

Joseph was a indispensable player in the divine drama of our Christmas account, but oddly enough when we think of all the characters that make up the Christmas events, Zechariah and Elizabeth, parents to be of John the Baptist, Mary the mother of Jesus, the shepherds, Herod and the wise men, they all are recorded as having spoken something, Joseph though must have said a lot, but not one word of his is recorded.

What we glean from our Bible passages, we can deduce that Joseph had a deep spirituality, something we can learn from. His family background though loosely connected to the royal family line of King David, did not help him very much, for Joseph did not obtain a lofty position in our world's eyes. All that he seemed to amount to was an up and coming blue collar worker trying to make himself a reputation as a good carpenter, but as a teenager this was tough - for Joseph was a dreamer - and a good thing too!

Because through his dreams he became the guardian and protector of Jesus as he grew up to be the man we know about from the gospels. Joseph had his head in the clouds because he was in love and planned to get married to Mary. He had dreamt of a happy future together. Until one spring day, Mary asked to speak with him alone about a very personal matter, it sounded serious. She told him that she was pregnant but he was not to jump to conclusions.

He still cared for Mary that is evident within our reading (Matthew 1:19) and decided he would not do anything rash or publicly to shame her. Mary made this a little easier by suggesting that she go to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, apparently the angel that had appeared to her, had mentioned something about old Elizabeth having a baby too (Luke 1:36,39,56). Mary is out of the picture for over three months and Joseph was left with his shattered dreams and the problem of what to do when she came back and Mary's condition was evident to all? It was a nightmare, even to think about it.

In Matthew's gospel it says that during this time Joseph was considering breaking off the engagement and I don't blame him (Matthew 1:19b) That was his mind set and it would have taken something dramatic to change his mind.

But after he has considered this (considered breaking off the engagement), an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins".

This was the first of four dreams that Joseph had and in each case God revealed his will to him. We have not got the time to even venture into the realm of interpreting dreams, but I feel we have narrowed God down into the way we think he can and cannot reveal his will to us.

Dreams are just one way, another way I feel that a wide range of churches have thrown out the baby with the bath water is in the area of prophecy - God revealing his will to us through prophecy. If we exclude these tools that God has given us from our repertoire of knowing and operating within God's will, what we might be left with is a collection or individual thoughts of "I feel that this is a good idea".

If Joseph had not heard clearly from God when he did we would not have had a Saviour as it describes in the Christmas story. For Jesus would have been killed along with the rest of the infants by Herod's hand if God had not through a dream told Joseph to flee (Matthew 2:13). This is why I say that I am glad that Joseph was a dreamer. As I said we have not got the time to look into this realm in any detail but I want to give us five ways to test dreams and prophecies and those felt answers to prayer and these points can be applied to any aspect of understanding God's guidance.