Why So Difficult?
Thoughts on Dream Interpretation
© 2003, Steve Bydeley
We are often asked why God makes the message in
dreams so difficult. Why doesn't he tell us in plane English what he wants of us so we can respond? Why
the puzzle?
If things were easier would that be better for us? Is it possible that God knows us better than we know
ourselves?
Various programs have been conceived to get people
off of a perpetual lifestyle dependent on social welfare. Because their parents were on welfare the children
grew up knowing nothing else. They continued in that same lifestyle. One program was designed to
gradually re-train these people by rewarding them for any extra work there able to do. The originators
hoped these rewards would wean them off of the social programs and onto self reliance. Regardless
of the programs outcome, the need to do something was identified.
A similar attempt was made to get families, and especially children, to learn to care for their low income
rental properties. The plan involved a routine of regularly cleaning up a family's unit in the hope that the
children would become accustomed to living in a cleaner environment. By improving conditions, the
organizers hoped the children would adopt that higher standard as their own. Here too, they identified the
need to influence the people to change.
In both cases people's standard for self-effort was reduced by making things too simple or to easy for them.
A society founded on easy social principles will not
prosper.
Paul talked about similar situations in his time when
he wrote "One of themselves, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy
gluttons." Paul also issued this command to the church in Thessalonica: "if anyone is not willing to work,
then he is not to eat, either." Paul understood that laziness often resulted when things were too easy.
In contrast to these things we read from Proverbs:
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to
search out a matter. Proverbs 25:2
The meaning of word translated glory is rooted in the words "burden or heaviness." When we add that
perspective to this verse we read:
It is God's burden, or responsibility to hide a matter,and a king's burden,
or job to search it out.
God knows we need to work for things so that we develop properly into king's kids.
As Israel entered the Promised Land,
God could have cleaned out the place, allowing the people and settle into homes they had not built and
harvest fields they had not planted. Instead, he promised to go before them, fighting as they fought,
progressing as they marched in to take the land. Working together they were strong and prospered.
God speaks to us in a picture language
through parables, dreams, visions, prophetic utterances, and through his word. Often concealed, our
challenge is to discover the message. It is a process of discovery. Staying close to the Father is
important to the discovery process. Enjoy the process.
Why does hearing God's message
through dreams seem so difficult? Because he knows we thrive in the effort and process of discovery.
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