Rest in God's Refuge

The Dream

Chuang Chou was a famous Chinese philosopher during the third century BC. One day, he dreamed that he became a butterfly and was happily flying over to the sky. When he woke up, he wondered if he had a dream of being a butterfly or the butterfly had a dream that he was Chuang Chou. Which one do you think is real, Chuang Chou or the butterfly?

Let me share my daily life.  I wake up each day; take a shower and dress up for the day. Then, I prepare my kids for school, do this and do that, go to work, meet people, and come back home at night.

Each time, I am aware of what I am doing and the decisions I make for the day. This daytime I, is about who I am, and who represents me, my identity to other people. Since I work a lot during the day, I go to sleep at night to rest.

As I fell asleep, another I pop up! Another I pop up in a dream, and this other I is busy in the dream doing something weird, crazy, funny, fantastic, creative or dumb things. While we call the daytime I as I or ego and I in the dream called the Dream I. So, the daytime I is the owner of the world of consciousness during the day and the dream I is the owner of the world of unconsciousness during the night. Which means, all people have two "I's" daytime I and dream I.

Daytime Jonah

The book of Jonah has only four chapters, but it has one of the most interesting stories. The story is about Prophet Jonah, who disobeyed God's word and was swallowed by a big fish, but still lived and finally carried out God's mission.

Some scholars believe that the story happened literally as the Bible said but others argue that even though the story carries Gods' word, it is not real. I do not want to argue if it is real or not. I do not want approach it with the general Biblical interpretation. Instead, I will try to see the story from the perspective of dream interpretation.

Chapter 1 says that God told Prophet Jonah to preach to the city of Nineveh. It was a great city of the Assyrian empire and its population at that time was more then 120,000. Niniveh was a wicked city worthy of destruction, but God wanted Jonah to preach to the Ninevites so that they would repent otherwise the city would be destroyed.

But the Assyrians were the people who destroyed Northern Israel. They were the enemies of the Israelites. Prophet Jonah, who was an Israelite and had patriotic mind, did not want their enemies to be saved. His patriotism was stronger than his desire to follow God's words.

So, verse 3 says that rather than going to Nineveh, Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish, which was the opposite direction of Nineveh.

Jonas' daytime I had a certain value or belief. If God says something against his value, the daytime I was willing to run away from God to avoid the conflict.

Obeying to God's words seemed like betraying his people. So, running away from God was the daytime I defense mechanism.

Nighttime Jonah

The story continues to say that Jonah took a ship to go Tarshish to flee from the Lord, but the storm came and threatened the ship. Then, Jonah confessed to the people that because of his disobedience, God caused this storm. So the people threw Jonah into the sea, and God sent a big fish to swallow Jonah.

Chapter 2 is Jonah's prayer when he was in the belly of the big fish. Jonah prayed at verse 2, "... out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. According to the Old Testament, sheol is a place where the dead people go. Being in the belly of a big fish was like being buried in a grave. It was dark, cold, lonely, scary and starving. There was nothing he could do but simply ask God for help.

According to the dream symbols, under the sea is the place of unconsciousness, where we are not aware and in the belly of the fish is the center of the depth of the unconsciousness. Since this is a place where one can be more receptive rather than proactive, it is a place where one can hear God's voice. It seems a scary place, but it is also a place of God's refuge where we can reconnect with God. It is a place where a dream is created.

Have you ever questioned why Mary had an angel's visitation for that I the annunciation but Joseph had it in his dream? Women are more receptive than men during the day. So women could hear God's message. Men have a strong ego during day time to deal with their daily social life, so they could not hear God's voice. When men sleep at night, they become more receptive and become ready to hear God's voice. So, a dream is the best way that God talks to men. Number 12:6 says "...when there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams.

Jonah had a strong ego and didn't listen to God when he was awake, but when he was swallowed by a big fish, he became receptive to God's voice. He repented, and swore that he would follow God's command.

Back to daytime I

Morton Kelsey, a Jungian psychologist and an Episcopalian Priest, says, "A dream is a way to listen to God". God talks us through a dream, but most people negate the dream and do not remember it.

Jonah experience God in the belly of the big fish and he committed himself to follow God's command, but once he came back to earth his ego still controlled his life. He was not happy to follow God's commandment.

So, chapter 3 said that she went to Nineveh and preached as God commanded, but he went through the city in just one day and preached quickly. It required 3 days to visit the city, but Jonah quickly finished his business without much concern (Jonah3:4).

It is like a guy who loved drinking. He went to see a doctor. His doctor said that he should stop drinking otherwise his kidney would fail. He said that he had to drink and the doctor said that if he drank just a couple of wine, it would be what fine. So this guy prepared a big cup that could hold a bottle of wine and drank it, told himself that he followed the doctor's advice.

Jonah was like that. He pretended to be following God's command, but he did not like to follow God's words. So chapter 3-4 describe Jonah's inner conflict between hispariotism and obeying God's word, between his consciousness and he's unconsciousness, between his daytime "I" and his inner "I".

We like to love people us Jesus said. But like Jonah, we love people who loved us. We love our family but not others. We love our community but not others. We love our country but not enemies. Always, we put a certain boundary consciously or unconsciously, and we love people who are within the boundary we created in our lives. We believe that we love people as Jesus said but denied that there are some people we really do not care about. Since our daytime "I" denies to see the uncomfortable truth, it is oppressed. But the truth is revealed in a dream, on the dream challenges us to move beyond our limits.

Rest in God's refuge

In Hebrew, the word dream is "chalom", and its meaning is to be made healthy or strong. Morton Kelsey says that dreams are gifts from God. God gave us dreams to make us healthy and strong. A dream is supposed to be God's refuge where we can rest.

Modern dream science has discovered that all people dream at night whether they remember or not. When people were deprived of their dreams, they become emotionally disturbed and anxious. Dreaming is not an option, but a human condition to keep our physical and psychological heath.

And understanding our dreams is our choice to grow spiritually.

Although, understanding our dreams is not the only way to improve our spiritual growth, it is one of the better ways to understand ourselves, to maintain our spiritual health and to understand God's guidance. Dreams do not tell us the truth directly. Most times, dreams talk to us indirectly through symbols. Therefore we need to interpret our dreams carefully with an open mind.

Remember that God gave us dreams as a gift, for our psychological and spiritual well- being.