Cloud-Like Dreams: Does God Care About Your Dreams?

From the get-go of human history, one of our shared universal experiences has been cloud-watching.

Clouds are one of the few things we have in common across time, geography, culture. We’ve always had an “up” to look towards, and in that up-space, the “sky,” we’ve always seen them: wisps and blankets that wander the expanse above us. 

Not only have we seen them, but we’ve also felt that they had meaning if only we looked closely enough. That we could find, for example, clues about weather — the intuition that their shape and color and movement might disclose a future storm or incoming heat wave. More playfully, we watch them on lazy summer afternoons and entertain ourselves by finding shapes in them. An apple, a barking dog, Timothee Chalamet with three ears, depending on your imagination.

Clouds are always in motion, teasing us with this primal question: Do I mean anything?

Dreams Bring Our Relationship with God to Life

If you’re a college student reading this, you’re no stranger to dreams and the endless questions surrounding them. When you hope for something, when you dream about a potential future for your life, or sense a longing for some outcome in the world, what are you seeing? Has God put that there? Does God want you to pursue it? If you care about God, and he cares about you, does that change how you dream? 

As followers of Jesus, our experience of dreaming is just like cloud-watching. We trace the outlines of our dreams like we do the clouds, and we ask that same question: Does this mean anything?

We may not verbally ask "Does this mean anything?" But dreams are a point of contact with God. We want to hear from him, dream with him, in relationship. And by giving us dreams and desires, God uses them –– and our uncertainty about them –– to deepen our relationship with him. 

This is the most important function of our dreams spiritually: they give us something to relate to God with. Imagine a sky without clouds –– a blank panel of blue, with no evidence of life or motion or activity. Without dreams and desires, our relationship with God would be like that vacant sky. 

Keeping our Dreams Open to God

What should we know about dreams so we can dream well with God? 

1. Our dreams are interpretable. 

Our desires and hopes — the recurring “I think I want…” or “It would be amazing if…” — can actually be understood. This doesn’t mean every stray thought is freighted with meaning. Sometimes, a cloud is just a cloud. At the same time, part of what God does with our desires is show us things we can discern. Dreaming well with God involves learning to be curious about our hearts and asking good, open-ended questions about our dreams so we understand what they’re telling us. It can be easy to stop at asking “Should I do this or not?” with dreams or “Why not…?” if they don’t seem to be fulfilled. The richness of our dreams lies in what they reveal: how God designed us, patterns of sin he wants us to release, redemptive longings he wants to cultivate.

Simply having a recurring dream is not necessarily a sign you have to pursue that exact path in exactly that way, with the promise of that exact outcome. Dreaming well with God means going deeper, trusting the longings of your heart and persistent desires tell you something, and God will help you discern it.

2. Our dreams are interruptible. 

Just as the motion and shape of clouds is dependent on wind and weather, our dreams are dependent on movements and input of the Lord. 

A prime example of this in Scripture is the apostle Paul, who in Acts planned to enter a particular part of the world until, in a dream, God directed him to go to Macedonia instead. The Bible is filled with many other examples of this dynamic. In fact, almost all of Scripture is a story of interruptions, of people who thought they should be doing one thing and who, by God’s intervention, were diverted to something else.

Dreams can become painful when we hold them too tightly, not allowing God to divert us from them or growing angry at God or others for thwarting them.

But remember, the main point of our dreams (from God’s point of view) is not that we fulfill them but that they draw us deeper into dependence and relationship with him. Clutching our dreams with an iron fist is pridefully thwarting that relationship, telling God in so many words, “Ok, I know what this cloud looks like now. I understand its shape exactly. I’ve got it from here, thanks.”

God reserves the right to interrupt our dreams as a way of reminding us we need him. He asks us to pray “your kingdom come, your will be done…” because, if we had our way, our dreams wouldn’t be Kingdom-shaped at all. 

The interruptibility of our dreams is a blessing that returns us to relationship with him as we ask “I thought I understood, but I don’t. I need you again, Lord. What now?” 

Is God There? 

The Lord used a pillar of cloud to lead the people of Israel after they escaped Egypt. What a way to shape their holy imagination, so that whenever they looked up at the clouds, they saw shapes and figures and portents of weather — but, above all, they saw him. 

Our dreams are like that. We all want to understand them, what to do with them, and how to achieve them. But the most important thing happening in your dreams and desires is that God is there, drawing your gaze to him like the bluest sky you’ve ever seen.