I began to study dreams after going to a course taught by John Paul Jackson called The Art of Hearing God. In this course, he showed how dreams are in the Bible and how they’re a key way God has spoken to people throughout history.
After that course, I studied his six-part teaching called The Essentials of Dreams and Visions. I listened to it multiple times, and I began to notice something—people who had no idea I was learning about dreams would come up to me and ask what their dreams meant!
One person even visited my church because God told them that someone at that church could help them understand their dream. After the service, they happened to come to me for prayer.
This journey to understanding God’s voice in dreams has been interesting, to say the least! I’ve continued to study and grow in this subject because I know there’s something here. I want to know God’s voice in any way He speaks, even if it’s in a way that doesn’t make full sense to the Western mindset.
A few years ago, John Paul Jackson wrote: “The Western world (Western Europe and North America) have traditionally put a very low value on the importance of dreams. The Eastern world (Eastern Europe and Asia), however, consider dreams to be vital windows of revelation—messages from God Himself.”
That’s why we study dreams and learn how to interpret them—because His voice is our treasure.
Many of us tend to shrug off our dreams, but God uses them. How loving is it to ignore someone when they’re speaking? Let’s learn to pay attention to God’s voice in the night.
Keep dreaming! And be sure to write them down when you have them.
For more about the study of dreams, listen to this episode of The Dreams Guy on Charisma Podcast Network. {eoa}
John and Dawna Thomas were radically saved out of the drug culture in 1996. Personally mentored by John Paul Jackson, they’ve been on staff with or have worked alongside Streams Ministries since 2004. John Thomas pastored The Bridge Metrowest (planted by Jackson) for five years before he and Dawna stepped out into full-time itinerant ministry. After Jackson passed away, John began to work more closely with the Streams leadership team and in 2016 was asked to become the president of Streams Ministries.
With his background as a pastor and a minister in various settings around the world, John has a unique perspective on prophetic ministry and the global body of Christ. He desires to see the church rise up in its authority and in the full power of the Holy Spirit, and his passion for God’s heart undergirds everything he does. He wants to help the bride of Christ respond with fervent devotion to the one who called her.
John co-authored The Art of Praying the Scriptures: A Fresh Look at Lectio Divina with John Paul Jackson and has also written courses on prophetic ministry, dream interpretation, and the kingdom of God. As president of Streams Ministries, he ministers internationally to help restore the awe of God to a world that has lost its wonder. He and Dawna live outside of Dallas, Texas.
