Does God Use Dreams?

I’m a third of the way through Wide Awake, the latest from Erwin McManus. I think that as I go through books, especially recapping my impressions at the end, I’m going to begin a Moleskine rating. My little pocket Moleskine is my equivalent of highlighting and underlining. Found it more helpful as all my thoughts are collected in one place instead of having to find a particular quote or thought that I underlined in a book that I can’t remember what I did with.

So, as I’m making my way through Wide Awake I think it is no small thing to note that I’ve already filled 14+ pages with notes! That’s one more than I filled with my entire previous book, Clusters.

Wide Awake is all about the place of dreams in our life - not the nightly variety, but rather the deep longings and hopes we have - and how God uses these dreams to change not only us, but the world around us.

As I began reading earlier this week, it became apparent rather quickly that this book is hitting my life at just the right time. As I detailed in “My 35 List: 5 Things I Want to Do in the Next 5 Years” I’m at a place of dreaming in my life.

McManus talks about Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, who sat on the street corner yelling for Jesus when he found out that He was nearby. Everyone told him to be quiet, but he only got louder - eventually throwing his cloak (perhaps the only thing he owned) and coming before Jesus. The interesting thing, McManus says, is the question Jesus asks Bartimaeus: “What do you want?” Here is the Son of God, who could see into this man’s heart and mind, asking a rather odd question. Even if he weren’t divine, he’d have to be ignorant to not know what the blind beggar was wanting. And yet He asked, maybe even for the sake of the question.

McManus notes:

If you had Jesus right in front of you and he asked you, “What do you want?” what would you say to him? What are you asking God for? What is driving you? If you were the blind man, you’d give the same answer he did. You would start with your deepest longing - the dream that seems too good to be true, the dream that seems too good to come true. ...

I think a lot of us are like Bartimaeus, except we are going to Jesus and saying, “Lord, could you give me sight in one eye?” instead of “Lord, could you give me twenty-twenty vision? I want to see.” Is it possible that you are not living the life of your dreams because God has asked you what you want and you are asking for way too little? Have you been willing to settle for much less than your dream? ...

I think a lot of our prayers make God wonder why we think so little of Him. I can just imagine God looking at us and asking us, “What do you want?” Then he shakes his head and thinks, “If I could just get you to believe more, to care more, to want more than you’re asking for.”

So I have my dreams - my “top 5” for the near future, if you will. But in the light of Jesus’ question that don’t seem like grand requests, in my opinion. I’ll keep them, if for nothing more than setting goals means achieving more than I would otherwise. But I have to wonder how I would answer Jesus if he were asking me today, “What do you want?”

Posted 07.09.2008

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