November 25, 2024 • 38 mins
God’s most common way of speaking in biblical history is through dreams and visions. But today many of us are more likely to dismiss our visionary experiences as the product of a spicy meal rather than a potential message from God. But could we be missing out on the voice we so long to hear?
Today’s show is a different one where we flip the roles around on the show! Hosted by one of our volunteer God Conversations team members, Ali Kennedy, we hear from Tania Harris, Director of God Conversations and the author of the brand new book, God Dreams: How to Hear God’s Voice in Dreams and Visions. You’ll get a taster of what the new book is all about, plus a peak behind the scenes of the writing process.
You’ll hear about:
Tania’s motivation for writing the book… 25 years in the making, the book began with a personal journey when Tania first heard God speak in a dream. The problem was she had never heard teaching on the topic and when she sought to seek understanding from others, she encountered skepticism, misunderstanding and even mockery.
I told my friends about my God dream and they thought I was strange. I told my pastor and he said I was strange. Then I read my Bible and I realised they were strange too, because they heard from God in dream-visions all the time!
Why the topic of dreams and visions is so neglected in the church – even when it makes up an enormous proportion of the biblical material. Tania explains the reasons for this “blind spot” in the Western church.
Some of the most pivotal points in biblical history happened while someone was sleeping.
Why God might favour dreams and visions as a form of communication above other means. Tania reflects on the insights of neuroscience and why they point to our masterful communicator who knows the best way to get the message across.
A picture really does tell a thousand words!
- The difference between a dream and a vision.
- Tania’s greatest challenge in writing the book – exploring John’s visions of Revelation, our best example of a visual God conversation in the early church. Tania joined a Revelation scholars group to ensure her interpretations had solid grounding in church tradition and biblical exegesis! Tania explains that John’s visions are not difficult to understand once you know how to interpret the language of symbolism.
Next Steps
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Inspired by the interview? Check out God Dreams the book!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
God conversations with Tanya Harris.
I think there's another Teresa. Someone asked her when does God
speak to you and she said whenever he wants.
How could I know if God was speaking to me?
And how could I know that that was actually just me thinking
about I just had some bad pizza?I just thought it was normal to
dream and have experiences. And she said to me, I actually
(00:21):
have a relationship with Jesus and he talks to me.
And it just blew my mind. And then hearing the Lord speak
again very clearly and just saying this, this is where I've
called you to love. And so Jesus said we'd recognise
his voice. It was never meant to be a one
way conversation. God's most common way of
speaking in biblical history is through dreams and visions.
(00:44):
But today, many of us are more likely to dismiss our visionary
experiences as the product of a spicy meal rather than a
potential message from God. But could we be missing out on
The Voice we so long to hear? Hi and welcome to God
Conversations podcast. My name is Allie Kennedy and I'm
(01:05):
a writer, speaker, coach, and volunteer team member of God
Conversations, a ministry that equips you to recognise and
respond to God's voice. Here today we are doing
something a little different where I will be interviewing the
show's usual host, Reverend Dr Tanya Harris, about her new book
(01:26):
called God Dreams, How to hear God's voice in dreams and
visions. For those who don't know
Reverend Dr Tanya, she is a pastor, practical theologian,
author, and founding director ofGod Conversations.
And she's a dear friend and mentor of mine.
So, Tanya, welcome to your podcast.
(01:48):
How weird does this feel? Everyone would have been
expecting to hear an Australian accent and then they get an
American one. They're good to talk with you,
Ali. It's so good to be able to be in
this position, Tanya. I've admired you, you know, and
followed you for many years. And you've had two books out all
ready, right? And this is your third.
(02:11):
This is your third. No, this is my fourth.
Yeah, there was a yeah, there was a third one that came out,
but it was an academic 1, so notmany people will have read it.
So this is your 4th book and so we're so excited and we're going
to be talking about it today. So why don't we just dive in?
And why don't you tell us what made you want to tackle this
(02:33):
topic of God dreams? But it kind of began in my late
20s, I would say. I had an, I had a dream, a God
dream, and it was a really clearone.
It was about God's timing in my life.
And I remember at the time trying to understand what it was
like, just to give you a quick recap of what it was, I'd been
(02:55):
struggling with God's timing in my life at the time, and I'd
become very impatient. I figured God was very slow and
he should hurry up because I've got things to do.
So. And it was at that time I had
this dream where in the dream I was sleeping and I woke up and I
noticed that my flat had been broken into and things had been
stolen. And my first thought was, you
(03:17):
know, when you wake up and you what time is it?
So I look across at the bedside table to see the clock, but for
some reason all the hands are spinning round and round and I
can't read the time. I'm like, who's done that to my
clock? And I think it's OK, I've got
another one. It's a digital clock on the
other side of the room. So I looked across at the
digital clock to see what time it was, but all the digits were
(03:38):
scrambled and I who sabotaged myclocks?
What time is it? And then I'm thinking, how could
a thief break into my home? Surely I would have woken up and
stopped them from stealing my things.
And then I literally did wake upand I thought, that's odd, you
know, excuse me, frog in my throat, that's odd.
(04:01):
What was that? You know, it's just this funny
dream that we have. And I, I had my shower and my
coffee and sat down at that timeto have some time with God.
And at the at the time I had a set devotional reading and it
was a passage out of Matthew 24 and the passage for the day.
I literally opened it up and it said if the owner of the house
(04:22):
had have known what time it was,they would not have been
sleeping and they wouldn't have allowed their home to be broken
into when the thief came to to steal.
So you too must be ready and awake because you do not know
what time the son of man's goingto come.
It was like what, what, what wasthat like?
(04:45):
It was straight out of my dream.And I'm like, was that was that
God? You know, and then I, I drive to
work that day. I was at a Bible college
teaching there. And every week we would have a
staff meeting and the principal would stand up and give a quick
devotional thought. And you know, the news for the,
for the college. And he stood up and he said,
open up your Bibles to Matthew 25 and told this story about
(05:09):
some people who are waiting for the groom at a wedding.
There were five foolish bridesmaids and five wives
bridesmaids. The five foolish bridesmaids
were foolish because they weren't prepared.
They weren't ready and they fellasleep and they weren't awake
when the groom came. But the five wives were ready
and awake. And then, kid you not, the
(05:29):
principal looks at the room and he goes, some of you here,
you're trying to work out God's timing.
You're becoming impatient. But God's saying to you, I'm not
going to tell you the time, but you just need to be ready for
when I come, you know? And I was like, oh, boy, it was,
it was clearly from God. But at the time, you know, I
(05:50):
tried to talk to people about it, my friends, my pastor, and
they, I said, I think God's speaking to me in a dream.
And I said, what, you know, whatare you talking about?
That's really strange. And and you know, because we're
familiar with the other types ofhearing from God when we're
reading Scripture and something really hits us in the face or
we're hearing scripture being preached about in a sermon or
(06:12):
reflection and that, you know, it really cuts to the heart.
But in this occasion, I had thiscrazy dream and and so then I
looked at the scriptures and realised, Oh my gosh, they as a
lot of the biblical characters heard from God in this way as
well. So that that took me on a little
journey to find out about the legitimacy of it.
So I think I went to the Christian bookstore and read
(06:32):
every book I could find on dreamvision.
And then over the course of my own God conversations journey,
God has, God has used dreams a lot.
And I started teaching on it very early on in the ministry.
And finally after, you know, 1520 years of reflecting on it,
got to write it in a book. So it's been a long time coming.
(06:55):
Yeah, well, it's, you know, you,you mentioned that when you
shared with your friends that you had this dream, there wasn't
necessarily a quick response or Oh yeah, I have that too.
And so in some ways this can be an overlooked topic in the
church, it seems, and that's church capital CI know there's
different streams of Christianity, but at large it
(07:18):
seems like this topic can be overlooked.
And why do you think that is? Yeah, I asked myself that same
question because Scripture is really clear.
And like I was, I was getting people rolling their eyes at me,
like giving me really strange looks like you, Tony, You're
you're just a bit strange. You're out there, you know,
you're fringe, you're wacky. And I'm like, but it, it's all
(07:39):
in there. And I, I think it's been a, a
blind spot that's developed overthe years partly as a product of
our western rationalistic mindset.
So if you go to the majority world, this is not unusual.
They're very much more aware of the spiritual realm.
And historically we have rejected this area.
In fact, one of the very early books I read about this area by
(07:59):
Morton Kelsey, a very good book called God, Dreams and
Revelation. He shows throughout history
where particularly in the Western world, this area has
been deleted from the writings. So some of the commentaries was
it, Whose commentaries was it? I can't even remember now, but
historically some of the big writers, big theologians, Thomas
(08:22):
Aquinas, I think anyway, whole volumes, 20 volumes, but the
volumes on dreams and visions were not translated.
So everything else was translated but the but these
weren't. So it was like not reject that
product of our history, a product also of a lack of
understanding about what it is because it's not that strange
(08:46):
when you start to unpack it. Picture language is the most
basic of languages and we use itall the time.
It's just that in the West, I think we often prefer the
verbal, the the rational rather than the artistic, the symbolic,
the imagery, and for me it's a lot more fun.
So, yeah, I mean, what what makes this a compelling Ave, if
(09:10):
you will, to to hear God's voice?
There are several that we can avail of, I guess you could say,
and and several. We can learn several ways we can
learn to hear God's voice. But what makes I mean, you wrote
a whole book about this. You clearly felt strongly that
this is something you wanted theworld and the church to know
more about. So what makes it a compelling
(09:31):
Ave to learn how to hear God's voice through dreams?
Yeah, and I would add visions tothat label as well.
So in in the biblical witness, what we see is dreams and
visions are terms that are used interchangeably.
They refer to a message in pictures.
So it's not so much about whether we're asleep or awake.
(09:51):
You know, we usually refer to dreams while we're asleep,
visions while we're awake. But in the biblical language
those those terms are interchangeable.
So you could have a dream is often called a vision of the
night, for example. So the issue is it's a message
in picture form. It comes in symbolism.
It comes as imagery and not so much with words.
So therefore it requires interpretation, but often that
(10:16):
that visual imagery can speak even more effectively without
words. So you've heard that phrase, a
picture tells 1000 words. In fact, what is interesting to
me, and I've asked myself this question and I, I kind of
explored this in the book as well.
I was super interested in why God uses this form of
communication the most in Scripture.
(10:36):
So some of the biggest, most pivotal God conversations in the
Bible happened while someone wassleeping.
So we, you know, we get Abraham's covenant with the, the
blazing torch going between animal pieces.
We, we get Joseph's streams, youknow, we get sheaves of wheat
bowing down and skinny and fat cows.
We get Jacob's dream of the stairway to heaven.
(10:59):
And then all through the, the prophets there, it's all in
visual form. You know, Amos, Zechariah,
they're all, they're all seeing things.
In fact the word for prophet wasseer in the early days and then
Fast forward into the New Testament, it continues.
So you get even Jesus having visions, not as many.
(11:19):
But then of course after Pentecost the the key
distinctive of the Spirit comingon everyone was that everyone
have the capacity to have dreamsand visions.
And then the the 20 or so God conversations in the book of
Acts are nearly all visionary. And then you've got the Book of
Revelation at the end, which is just completely a vision, whole
(11:39):
series of pictures. And I think what, you know,
looking at some of the scientific studies that I've
looked at, they say that visualsand images have a much more long
lasting effect in terms of communication.
They impact us more deeply. Some have even said that when
you when you look at the brain as it's having one of these
(12:01):
experiences, particularly in dreams, it's almost like we are
there and the brain interprets it like we're in the scene.
So for me, having this dream of the thief in the night, it was
such a wake up call, like a literal wake up call.
Stop being so impatient about the timing.
I'm not going to. It's a mystery.
You're not going to find it out,but you have to stay awake.
(12:23):
In other words, you have to be ready and have your faith alert
and keep preparing for what I have for you.
And that was a very powerful wayto communicate better than
perhaps better than God saying, Tanya, stop being so impatient.
Trust me, you know he could haveused words.
Absolutely, Yeah. Yeah.
(12:44):
Well, you know, as you were telling that opening story, I'm
thinking, gosh, I would like to have a dream like that, you
know, and. And and yet we can't force it,
we can't control it. We can't manifest, you know,
having a dream. So is this something for
everyone, or is it just something that comes upon some
of us? That's a true.
(13:04):
That's such a good question. I don't know 100% the answer to
that, but what I do know is thatthis is God's most common mode
of communication in Scripture, and there must be a reason for
that. I figure everyone sleeps and
everyone dreams. Like scientists tell us that we
all dream for one to two hours of night.
(13:25):
It's a it's a product of our natural physical mechanisms.
Dreaming has a therapeutic effect.
It heals us and restores us as we sleep.
It's almost like house cleaning for the brain.
So in the midst of that, God canspeak.
But I think that the defining difference about those who have
God dreams and those who don't, people who are aware that it's
(13:46):
possible, because often I think,you know, there's that famous
verse in Job, it says, why do you complain that God doesn't
speak? For God does speak now one way
or another. He speaks in a dream, in a
vision of the night, but you don't notice it.
And I think it's just about being alert to the possibility
(14:08):
that God could speak this way. It's not thinking, Oh my gosh,
every dream I have is from God. It's, it's, that's not true.
Obviously not because not every thought we have is from the Holy
Spirit in the same way. And it's, it's quite unhelpful
to think that that's the case. But sometimes God does speak in
this way. So it's just being alert.
(14:29):
And I think as we come to God and we say, God, speak to me
whichever way you choose, and I'm going to be alert.
My eyes are open. I have ears to ears to hear and
eyes to see what you are saying,however that comes.
So thanks for that. Yeah.
So being more alert. So can you unpack that?
(14:50):
What would that look like? Does that mean paying more
attention in the mornings the second you wake up?
Did I have a dream? Is that from God?
You know, could you just kind ofexplain a little bit more how we
can do this practically? Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think first of all, well, it depends on your
personality. I think some people will just
go, look, just go for it. Just before you go to sleep
tonight, just pray and pray God speak to me and then wake up and
(15:11):
take note, you know, you know, the dreams we have as we wake
disappear within 5 or 10 minutes.
And often it's that last as we that slowly waking up time that
that God can speak in that that little window of time.
But for, for me, what was helpful for me as well, because
I'm a bit of a thinker, is to actually look at the testimony
and scripture and see the legitimacy of it.
(15:32):
You know, Jesus would have been murdered as a baby if not for
God. Dreams.
There are 5 dreams in the Christmas story.
And I remember hearing that going is there?
I didn't know that I've heard the Christmas story every year
all my life and I never realisedthat without dreams Jesus would
have been murdered as a baby. I was profoundly, you know,
(15:56):
shocked by that. And then of course, Book of
Revelation in the Bible is full of it.
And, and perhaps it's because people haven't understood how
it's worked that they've rejected it.
So for whatever reasons that we have for rejecting that, I think
it's worth working through thoseand then just being open to, to
listening to the voice of God. And of course, dreams and then
visions, visions usually in our language, we talk about having a
(16:20):
vision while we're awake. So, you know, you might be
praying for someone and you get a picture in your mind's eye.
In that stage of your mind, in the realm of the imagination,
you see this picture come acrossand you might say something.
I remember hearing a story abouta woman, a young woman who was
praying for another woman. And she closes her eyes and
(16:40):
begins to pray for her. And she sees this image of a
yellow Peacock. So strange, right?
You know, that's not yourself because it's so weird because
there's no such thing as a yellow Peacock.
Anyway, she's standing as she's going.
What is that about? What does that mean?
What does that mean for this woman I'm praying for?
You know, how is she like a Peacock?
(17:01):
So what are you going to say? So good on her.
She said, oh, the guy, I'm seeing this picture, but I don't
know what it means. Perhaps you do.
It's a vision of a yellow Peacock.
And the person she's praying foris like, Oh my gosh, that's the
password for everything in my life.
Like all like computers. And I know.
(17:23):
And they realised and they reflected on together, they
realised it was like God was saying, can you unlock the the
deepest parts of yourselves to me?
Can you open up your heart to me?
But what a profound way to speakwithout words.
It's just so. You're listening.
So, so you're saying that even when we pray for people and we
(17:47):
see something in our mind's eye in that place of imagination,
that is, that is also included in the God dreams and visions,
that's what we're talking about.Yeah, the the terminology in
Scripture embraces both. And so, you know, people
sometimes talk about having an open vision where there's a sort
of an openness between the spirit and natural realm.
Anytime you see a picture, a message in pictures is what this
(18:11):
category is about as opposed to spirit words.
So it can embrace all of that because the principles of
interpretation are the same in the sense that God speaks in
picture form. What do you see?
It's more what you see rather than what you hear.
Did you know that dreams and visions are the most common way
God spoke in biblical history? And God still speaks in this
(18:33):
powerful and creative way today.Of course, not every dream is
from God. So how do we know when it is?
And how do we understand the strange scenes that appear in
our dreams? The globally renowned God Dreams
online course answers these questions and more.
It includes 6 teaching videos, adownloadable study guide, and
(18:54):
interaction with the God Conversations team.
We've kept the price super low to make it accessible to
everyone. Be equipped to hear God's voice
in dreams and visions. Register today at
godconversations.com/courses. Welcome back to God
Conversations. My name is Allie Kennedy.
I am today's host on the podcastand I'm interviewing Tanya
(19:18):
Harris about her new book on Goddreams.
So Tanya, we were just talking about kind of the definition of
God, dreams and visions as we see them in Scripture.
And I was so encouraged because I actually didn't recognise, you
know, when I pray for people, I often get an image or a picture
(19:41):
and trying to communicate that. And I've, you know, you and I
have prayed over each other and we've, we've experienced that.
So I'm just encouraged to know that, you know, you sort of
expanded my understanding of what God dreams and visions are.
So my next question would be, and we're going to get into
really the writing of the book in a moment.
(20:01):
But before that, you know, how often, how frequently do you?
Receive God dreams in your own life.
You know, I had a previous boss at an organisation I worked for
and he would get, you know, for all the major decisions in his
life, he somehow he would get the and he would move on these
dreams. And so it was for him, you know,
(20:22):
it was the main Ave through which God spoke.
So I just wonder for you, you know, how frequent are God
dreams in your life? Yeah.
You know, God chooses when to speak and how to speak.
And I don't know if there's a regular pattern about how that
happens. I think it's like a
relationship. It ebbs and flows in terms of
(20:42):
it. For me, dreams are probably the
easiest way for me to hear from God because it switches off my
active brain. You know, I often wonder, God
spoke to Peter in a vision, you know, the story on the rooftop
of Doppler and he, it says that he was in a trance.
So he's probably sort of halfwaybetween awake and asleep, that
kind of mid space, and he sees the vision of the unclean
(21:04):
animals. And I asked myself the question,
why did God, you know, allow himto move into a trance state in
order to receive that? And perhaps it was because it
was a message he couldn't receive in his waking life.
And it was a bit more subtle andit required a little bit more
reflection because it was a message about the Gentiles that
would have been hard for Peter to hear.
But yeah, you know, I guess not.Not every day, certainly.
(21:29):
The thing about dreams is that our natural dreams can also have
insight into them. Yeah.
Our, our, we are made in God's image where our bodies are made
to behold, as are our minds. And So what we see is that
everyone dreams and can have natural dreams where they
experience insight into what's going on inside of themselves.
So for example, you know, if you're having a fight with
(21:51):
someone at work, you often you might dream of hitting them in a
boxing ring. Or you know, if you're if you're
feeling like really tightly bound or you, you've got no
options in life, you might see yourself running down an alley
where you can't, where there's no exit.
You know that. Or if you're feeling unprepared
for a test or an exam coming up in the dream, you turn up
(22:12):
without your clothes on because you haven't gotten ready.
You know, there's like anxiety dreams.
So we have those all the time. And I think in, in the, in the
understanding of God dreams, it's good to understand what
natural dreams are like as well,because then you can tell the
difference. Natural dreams tend to be
reflections of ourselves, whereas the God dreams, I think,
(22:34):
well, the, the Spirit speaks as the continuing voice of Jesus.
So it's always going to lead us to follow Jesus.
So they're, they're going to have that element to them where
God is leading us into a place of wisdom and freedom and truth
and understanding about what Godis like and about what our
mission is to bring God's heart to the world, to bring God's
Kingdom to the earth. So yeah, I think that whole
(22:56):
realm is is useful to understandwhether it's a God dream or
whether it's a natural dream. So getting into the nitty gritty
of the actual book itself, what what can readers look out for in
terms of the structure and and how you framed the book?
Yeah, the first few chapters area bit of a background, give a
bit of a foundation about what our dreams and visions.
(23:18):
It gives a a number of differentperspectives from psychology,
from neuroscience, from religions, different religions
in the world, and then from the Christian perspective.
And then it talks about what where they come from, where, you
know, natural dreams, spirit dreams and God dreams.
How do we know this source? And then we in the second half
of the book, we start to unpack the practicalities, the use of
(23:39):
language of symbolism and imagery and pictures, which is
an art in some ways because we learn to understand imagery.
For example, you know, one of the, the fun ones I had once I
was just, I'd been moving house in Sydney, where I live now for
many, many times over. Like I was exhausted from moving
(24:01):
house and I finally felt like I'd landed in a, in a place
where I could stay for a bit longer.
And I'd still, I'd just moved from Melbourne a year before and
I still had lots of things in storage and in boxes.
So just that week I had decided I'm going to clean my flat.
I'm going to try and make my room really nice.
I'm going to cover up the cardboard boxes with a cloth and
(24:21):
put, you know, put things in their place.
And I, I remember on this particular day sorting it all
out and I was really happy with myself.
I'm like, right, I'm settled at last and and then I kid you not
have this dream that night. And in the dream I see a caravan
and it is floating on a fast flowing muddy river.
(24:42):
I am in the caravan and I am, I'm thinking why am I in the
caravan? Why is my caravan on a mirror on
a river? Sorry.
And then what happens is the river water starts flowing
through the door of the caravan and messing up my caravan.
So I've got a broom. I'm sweeping out this river
water. I'm sweeping it out and sweeping
it out. It just keeps flying back in
(25:03):
because we're on a river. It keeps moving.
We're moving all the time. And I'm so I'm sweeping it out
and I'm so frustrated. And I think, what am I doing in
a caravan? Why am I living in a caravan?
And why are we on a river? And I wake up thinking that.
And my next thought is, Oh no, can you see?
Can you see what's coming, Ali? Can you see what it's saying?
(25:28):
So what kind of home is the caravan?
A mobile home. Yeah, yeah, it's always on the
move, right? It's still moving.
And this caravan's on a river. So lo and behold, a few days
later, my flatmate comes home and says, oh, I'm sorry, I'm
engaged, you have to move out. I clicked to move again, pack
(25:51):
everything up and move again. It was a beautiful heads up from
God to say you're going to be moving again, but don't worry,
I'm going to provide for you. But it's the symbolism, see.
And if you think about what a what is a caravan or a caravan
is a home that's always on the move.
And the frustration had been in the dream.
I was trying to make it all niceinside, but because it kept
moving like I had to, you know, it was, it was difficult to do.
(26:14):
Now the next dream that God gaveme, it was a dream about the
house that I was about to move into, which was a really good
dream. So, but yeah, it's about, it's
about understanding symbols. And so there's quite a lot of
the book that does that. We talk about the ABC's of
symbols, some of the most commonsymbols you see in a dream.
For example, people commonly dream of a vehicle, A, a moving,
(26:35):
you know, a car, a bus, a train usually represents, you know,
going from A to B. So it's my career, my some sort
of pursuit project or, you know,my ministry, whatever that might
be. Houses is probably the most
prominent. You think about what a house
does, what it means for us. Well, it's the it's the vantage
point for through which we see life.
(26:56):
It's it's who we are. So houses will often appear in
our dreams. And then you often get animals.
And so an animal might appear. And then we ask ourselves, well,
what is the distinctive part of this animal that's represented
here? And that's, that's the real key
to thinking symbolically, because these images and and
(27:17):
animals and objects and people even represent something.
So for example, the classic one is you might see an eagle in a
dream. Eagles often represent freedom,
sometimes vision and and they they fly above storms with very
strong, very, very free animals.Or, or then you might get a, you
(27:37):
know, a snail. What do you associate with
snails? Very slow.
As slow as a snail, you know, oras devious as a snake.
Yeah. So you can have all sorts of
symbolic imagery. I I love the one in Scripture
with the valley of the dry bones.
That's a very famous scene that Ezekiel sees and he just sees
(28:02):
all these dry bones that are scattered.
And here we have an image of death, no life bones.
And he as he, as he's watching these dry bones, a wind begins
to blow and they begin to shake and they begin to connect with
each other and they then begin to form into skeletons.
And then the wind blows and, youknow, the, the muscles come and
(28:25):
the flesh comes and sinews and ligaments and they all begin to
form into these corpses. And the wind continues to blow
and they all stand up in the, in, in the formation of an army.
It's like a zombie movie, you know it, But it's, it is
incredibly powerful imagery. And then God says these, these
bones are the hopes of my people.
(28:47):
They're dead. You know, it's such a powerful
way to communicate. No hope.
And then, but I'm going to blow.I'm going to blow my power and
my energy, my inspiration, my life into you.
And you're going to take form. You're going to be strong again.
You're going to be returned to your destiny.
You can really see when you start unpacking the stuff that
(29:09):
the picture tells 1000 words. Well, I'm so excited too.
Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I didn't.
I was just going to say then theend of the book.
Then we get to, we have a look at the Book of Revelation, which
is really fun. So we look at some scenes out of
Revelation and we interpret themusing the framework that's
introduced into the books, go through a bit of a process of
(29:31):
that. Yeah, Well, I, I mean, as you're
sharing some of these examples of dreams, I, I, I'm, I'm
thinking, gosh, I mean, people really do need some level of
equipping. Because maybe the reason why
people haven't, and this hasn't been popular, popular
popularised so much is that people are afraid of
misinterpreting. So, you know, what would you say
(29:52):
to that? I mean, how do we know if we're
interpreting incorrectly or incorrectly?
Yeah, that's the tricky part, because you could, I could tell
you a dream and then I could ask5 people what it means and it'll
come up with something very different.
That's what happens, you know? Well, you see the Book of
Revelation, like how many, how many commentaries and
(30:13):
interpretations are available? Like this means this and the
lamb is this. And then the, you know, the
dragon is this. And Oh yeah.
So one of the key principles of interpretation that is super
important, which is the one thatpeople most miss, is that you
interpret the scene in a vision or a dream against the context
of the person who's having it, the backdrop, the setting, what
(30:36):
is going on in their lives at the time, what is going on in my
life at the time. And this is so important.
For example, for Ezekiel, you can't understand the meaning of
the dream unless you really understand.
Well, actually, the nation had been in exile.
They're away from all the promises of God, their destiny.
They're hopeless. They're they're depressed.
They're, you know, by the riversof Babylon, we wept because we
(30:57):
remembered Zion. We want to go back there.
This is not where we're supposedto be.
Same with the Book of Revelation.
So you don't understand that fully until you understand what
was happening in the lives of John and the seven churches that
it was then communicated to. And when you understand that
that setting is based on late 1st century Greco Roman world,
(31:19):
the church was, you know, growing but not influential or
small. And it was faced with some of
the, the, the greatness of the Roman Empire.
And there's this beautiful opening scene in Revelation
chapter 4, which is my favourite.
I've been sitting in this place for a couple of years now.
(31:40):
And John sees the scene of a throne room and there is a great
throne with a rainbow around it and a sea of glass before it.
Then there's 24 elders seated onsmaller Thrones and they've got
crowns on their head and they lay them down before the one who
sits on the throne. And the one who sits on the
throne has a scroll in his righthand.
(32:01):
And you know, if you were a 1st century person living in the
Roman world, you would be familiar with the Roman throne
room. That's what would come to mind
is the throne room of Rome and who sits on that throne or the
emperor? And it's interesting to me that
the archaeologists found a statue of Demetian, who was
probably the emperor of the time.
(32:21):
And he, he's got, there's this big statue of him sitting on a
throne and he's got a scroll in his right hand.
He had 24 governors who ruled the provinces at the time.
And they would come to him with their crowns and lay them down
before the emperor because they wanted to carry his favour.
So what you've got here is you've got this scene and God's
going, OK, you're familiar with Rome and how Rome is governed.
(32:44):
But let me show you how the government of heaven is ruled,
because on this throne, it's notan emperor.
In fact, what we see is the story goes on.
It's a, it's a, it's a lamb. It's a sacrificial lamb.
It looks like it's been slain, this little fragile lamb.
And it's a weird looking lamb because it's got 7 horns and
seven eyes, which is again symbolism.
(33:09):
But if you understand that at that time, 7 is the number of
perfection in the ancient world.And horns are a symbol of
strength and eyes, obviously a vision.
This little weak lamb has strength, perfect strength,
perfect vision. This lamb rules God's Kingdom
(33:30):
rules it very differently because the lamb represents the
self sacrificial love of Jesus. And Jesus is on the throne and
his ways rule. And that secret to power and
authority in God's Kingdom is through Jesus's ways, not
through the ways of the emperor,which are, you know, in Rome,
the ways of Rome were violence and oppression and slavery.
(33:51):
And you know, they, they, the love of money, the love of
status and, and wealth. So you've got this beautiful,
powerful scene that contrasts the way of God with the way of
humanity. And it shows us how we live.
It showed the 1st century churchhow to live.
But then it has a relevance for us.
But sorry, that was a long answer to a short question, Ali.
(34:12):
But the setting is super important to understand.
Otherwise, you can stick any interpretation you want to.
Yeah, well, that was so helpful.Just that little bit there of
like, you know, you expounding on the the historical context at
the time. And that's what you're so great
at, Tanya, You're such, you're such a beautiful writer and
(34:33):
articulator of some of these details.
And I have so much confidence that this is going to help you
help your readers understand Goddreams and visions better.
So, you know, just, we just havea couple more minutes.
But what was challenging about writing this book?
I can't imagine it was all roses, was it?
Look, the hardest part for me was when I was getting into the
(34:56):
Book of Revelation, I have to admit, because because there's
such a wide plethora of interpretations out there.
And there's a back story to thatwas because, you know, I hadn't
read the Book of Revelation for years because it was all a bit
weird and strange. And I had been teaching God
dreams for about 10 years with God conversations.
And I, I, for some reason, I started reading Revelation and I
just automatically applied the principles of interpretation I'd
(35:18):
been teaching. And as I read it, it's like, of
course, that makes perfect sense.
And 90% of it, it was perfectly understandable to me once I
understood the interpretive principles.
Now some of it, some of it's still a bit obscure.
And we should be surprised by that because we are 21st century
people. We don't know the foreigners of
(35:39):
century. So it's hard to, you know, get
every detail. But remembering in that for the
early church, they would have understood perfectly what it
meant. And for them, it was the Holy
Spirit speaking to them as the continuing voice of Jesus,
reminding them of the truth of Jesus, what Jesus had
established, but then speaking about what that looked like in
their lives. And so the, the challenging
(36:01):
thing was, was working through abit of that and I joined a
scholars group, Revelation biblical scholars group for a
year and during COVID, actually trying to learn from the experts
because I'm not a biblical scholar and I don't pretend to
be so. But I think I think what's come
out is going to be really helpful for people.
So. So last question, what do you
(36:21):
want people to really walk away with in reading this book?
Well, I want to encourage peoplethat this is a whole mode of
communication that we are not aware of and we need to learn a
little bit more about this because it's one of the easiest
ways to hear God's voice, you know, for dreams, just fall
asleep and one of the really untapped areas.
(36:45):
And of course, it comes with allthose necessary boundaries and
safeguards about discernment. We need to do that as with any
God conversation. So we talk about that in the
book, but I encourage people to to get a hold of it and then to
be open to say God speak to me in this way.
I'd love to hear your voice because God really is a
(37:06):
masterful communicator and very clever at making his messages
clear as we listen and learn. Well, I can't wait to get my
copy. Where can people go to get a
copy of this book? I'll have to give you a free
one, Ali. I think it is.
It is available at godconversations.com.
(37:28):
We have all of our books are available there.
We have stores, global stores, but if you can't get it there,
you could always try other bookstores as well.
It'll be available on Kindle as an ebook and we're also doing an
audiobook which will come out. So the release, the launch date
would be September in the UK, soit will have just come out and
then October globally and then the audio book will come out a
(37:50):
couple months after that. Amazing, You have the best
voice. And so I'm certainly going to
get the audio version. And I just so appreciate you,
Tanya, giving me this opportunity and for you being
willing to be interviewed. And I know we just learned so
much today. And thank you everyone for
tuning in and go get your copy of Tanya's book.
Beautiful. Thanks so much Ellie, it's been
(38:11):
fun. Thanks for listening to God
conversations with Tanya Harris.Don't miss the next episode by
subscribing to the show and yourfavourite podcast app.
And remember, the Holy Spirit was given so we could all hear
God's voice. It was never meant to be a one
way conversation.
God conversations with Tanya Harris.
I think there's another Teresa. Someone asked her when does God
speak to you and she said whenever he wants.
How could I know if God was speaking to me?
And how could I know that that was actually just me thinking
about I just had some bad pizza?I just thought it was normal to
dream and have experiences. And she said to me, I actually
(00:21):
have a relationship with Jesus and he talks to me.
And it just blew my mind. And then hearing the Lord speak
again very clearly and just saying this, this is where I've
called you to love. And so Jesus said we'd recognise
his voice. It was never meant to be a one
way conversation. God's most common way of
speaking in biblical history is through dreams and visions.
(00:44):
But today, many of us are more likely to dismiss our visionary
experiences as the product of a spicy meal rather than a
potential message from God. But could we be missing out on
The Voice we so long to hear? Hi and welcome to God
Conversations podcast. My name is Allie Kennedy and I'm
(01:05):
a writer, speaker, coach, and volunteer team member of God
Conversations, a ministry that equips you to recognise and
respond to God's voice. Here today we are doing
something a little different where I will be interviewing the
show's usual host, Reverend Dr Tanya Harris, about her new book
(01:26):
called God Dreams, How to hear God's voice in dreams and
visions. For those who don't know
Reverend Dr Tanya, she is a pastor, practical theologian,
author, and founding director ofGod Conversations.
And she's a dear friend and mentor of mine.
So, Tanya, welcome to your podcast.
(01:48):
How weird does this feel? Everyone would have been
expecting to hear an Australian accent and then they get an
American one. They're good to talk with you,
Ali. It's so good to be able to be in
this position, Tanya. I've admired you, you know, and
followed you for many years. And you've had two books out all
ready, right? And this is your third.
(02:11):
This is your third. No, this is my fourth.
Yeah, there was a yeah, there was a third one that came out,
but it was an academic 1, so notmany people will have read it.
So this is your 4th book and so we're so excited and we're going
to be talking about it today. So why don't we just dive in?
And why don't you tell us what made you want to tackle this
(02:33):
topic of God dreams? But it kind of began in my late
20s, I would say. I had an, I had a dream, a God
dream, and it was a really clearone.
It was about God's timing in my life.
And I remember at the time trying to understand what it was
like, just to give you a quick recap of what it was, I'd been
(02:55):
struggling with God's timing in my life at the time, and I'd
become very impatient. I figured God was very slow and
he should hurry up because I've got things to do.
So. And it was at that time I had
this dream where in the dream I was sleeping and I woke up and I
noticed that my flat had been broken into and things had been
stolen. And my first thought was, you
(03:17):
know, when you wake up and you what time is it?
So I look across at the bedside table to see the clock, but for
some reason all the hands are spinning round and round and I
can't read the time. I'm like, who's done that to my
clock? And I think it's OK, I've got
another one. It's a digital clock on the
other side of the room. So I looked across at the
digital clock to see what time it was, but all the digits were
(03:38):
scrambled and I who sabotaged myclocks?
What time is it? And then I'm thinking, how could
a thief break into my home? Surely I would have woken up and
stopped them from stealing my things.
And then I literally did wake upand I thought, that's odd, you
know, excuse me, frog in my throat, that's odd.
(04:01):
What was that? You know, it's just this funny
dream that we have. And I, I had my shower and my
coffee and sat down at that timeto have some time with God.
And at the at the time I had a set devotional reading and it
was a passage out of Matthew 24 and the passage for the day.
I literally opened it up and it said if the owner of the house
(04:22):
had have known what time it was,they would not have been
sleeping and they wouldn't have allowed their home to be broken
into when the thief came to to steal.
So you too must be ready and awake because you do not know
what time the son of man's goingto come.
It was like what, what, what wasthat like?
(04:45):
It was straight out of my dream.And I'm like, was that was that
God? You know, and then I, I drive to
work that day. I was at a Bible college
teaching there. And every week we would have a
staff meeting and the principal would stand up and give a quick
devotional thought. And you know, the news for the,
for the college. And he stood up and he said,
open up your Bibles to Matthew 25 and told this story about
(05:09):
some people who are waiting for the groom at a wedding.
There were five foolish bridesmaids and five wives
bridesmaids. The five foolish bridesmaids
were foolish because they weren't prepared.
They weren't ready and they fellasleep and they weren't awake
when the groom came. But the five wives were ready
and awake. And then, kid you not, the
(05:29):
principal looks at the room and he goes, some of you here,
you're trying to work out God's timing.
You're becoming impatient. But God's saying to you, I'm not
going to tell you the time, but you just need to be ready for
when I come, you know? And I was like, oh, boy, it was,
it was clearly from God. But at the time, you know, I
(05:50):
tried to talk to people about it, my friends, my pastor, and
they, I said, I think God's speaking to me in a dream.
And I said, what, you know, whatare you talking about?
That's really strange. And and you know, because we're
familiar with the other types ofhearing from God when we're
reading Scripture and something really hits us in the face or
we're hearing scripture being preached about in a sermon or
(06:12):
reflection and that, you know, it really cuts to the heart.
But in this occasion, I had thiscrazy dream and and so then I
looked at the scriptures and realised, Oh my gosh, they as a
lot of the biblical characters heard from God in this way as
well. So that that took me on a little
journey to find out about the legitimacy of it.
So I think I went to the Christian bookstore and read
(06:32):
every book I could find on dreamvision.
And then over the course of my own God conversations journey,
God has, God has used dreams a lot.
And I started teaching on it very early on in the ministry.
And finally after, you know, 1520 years of reflecting on it,
got to write it in a book. So it's been a long time coming.
(06:55):
Yeah, well, it's, you know, you,you mentioned that when you
shared with your friends that you had this dream, there wasn't
necessarily a quick response or Oh yeah, I have that too.
And so in some ways this can be an overlooked topic in the
church, it seems, and that's church capital CI know there's
different streams of Christianity, but at large it
(07:18):
seems like this topic can be overlooked.
And why do you think that is? Yeah, I asked myself that same
question because Scripture is really clear.
And like I was, I was getting people rolling their eyes at me,
like giving me really strange looks like you, Tony, You're
you're just a bit strange. You're out there, you know,
you're fringe, you're wacky. And I'm like, but it, it's all
(07:39):
in there. And I, I think it's been a, a
blind spot that's developed overthe years partly as a product of
our western rationalistic mindset.
So if you go to the majority world, this is not unusual.
They're very much more aware of the spiritual realm.
And historically we have rejected this area.
In fact, one of the very early books I read about this area by
(07:59):
Morton Kelsey, a very good book called God, Dreams and
Revelation. He shows throughout history
where particularly in the Western world, this area has
been deleted from the writings. So some of the commentaries was
it, Whose commentaries was it? I can't even remember now, but
historically some of the big writers, big theologians, Thomas
(08:22):
Aquinas, I think anyway, whole volumes, 20 volumes, but the
volumes on dreams and visions were not translated.
So everything else was translated but the but these
weren't. So it was like not reject that
product of our history, a product also of a lack of
understanding about what it is because it's not that strange
(08:46):
when you start to unpack it. Picture language is the most
basic of languages and we use itall the time.
It's just that in the West, I think we often prefer the
verbal, the the rational rather than the artistic, the symbolic,
the imagery, and for me it's a lot more fun.
So, yeah, I mean, what what makes this a compelling Ave, if
(09:10):
you will, to to hear God's voice?
There are several that we can avail of, I guess you could say,
and and several. We can learn several ways we can
learn to hear God's voice. But what makes I mean, you wrote
a whole book about this. You clearly felt strongly that
this is something you wanted theworld and the church to know
more about. So what makes it a compelling
(09:31):
Ave to learn how to hear God's voice through dreams?
Yeah, and I would add visions tothat label as well.
So in in the biblical witness, what we see is dreams and
visions are terms that are used interchangeably.
They refer to a message in pictures.
So it's not so much about whether we're asleep or awake.
(09:51):
You know, we usually refer to dreams while we're asleep,
visions while we're awake. But in the biblical language
those those terms are interchangeable.
So you could have a dream is often called a vision of the
night, for example. So the issue is it's a message
in picture form. It comes in symbolism.
It comes as imagery and not so much with words.
So therefore it requires interpretation, but often that
(10:16):
that visual imagery can speak even more effectively without
words. So you've heard that phrase, a
picture tells 1000 words. In fact, what is interesting to
me, and I've asked myself this question and I, I kind of
explored this in the book as well.
I was super interested in why God uses this form of
communication the most in Scripture.
(10:36):
So some of the biggest, most pivotal God conversations in the
Bible happened while someone wassleeping.
So we, you know, we get Abraham's covenant with the, the
blazing torch going between animal pieces.
We, we get Joseph's streams, youknow, we get sheaves of wheat
bowing down and skinny and fat cows.
We get Jacob's dream of the stairway to heaven.
(10:59):
And then all through the, the prophets there, it's all in
visual form. You know, Amos, Zechariah,
they're all, they're all seeing things.
In fact the word for prophet wasseer in the early days and then
Fast forward into the New Testament, it continues.
So you get even Jesus having visions, not as many.
(11:19):
But then of course after Pentecost the the key
distinctive of the Spirit comingon everyone was that everyone
have the capacity to have dreamsand visions.
And then the the 20 or so God conversations in the book of
Acts are nearly all visionary. And then you've got the Book of
Revelation at the end, which is just completely a vision, whole
(11:39):
series of pictures. And I think what, you know,
looking at some of the scientific studies that I've
looked at, they say that visualsand images have a much more long
lasting effect in terms of communication.
They impact us more deeply. Some have even said that when
you when you look at the brain as it's having one of these
(12:01):
experiences, particularly in dreams, it's almost like we are
there and the brain interprets it like we're in the scene.
So for me, having this dream of the thief in the night, it was
such a wake up call, like a literal wake up call.
Stop being so impatient about the timing.
I'm not going to. It's a mystery.
You're not going to find it out,but you have to stay awake.
(12:23):
In other words, you have to be ready and have your faith alert
and keep preparing for what I have for you.
And that was a very powerful wayto communicate better than
perhaps better than God saying, Tanya, stop being so impatient.
Trust me, you know he could haveused words.
Absolutely, Yeah. Yeah.
(12:44):
Well, you know, as you were telling that opening story, I'm
thinking, gosh, I would like to have a dream like that, you
know, and. And and yet we can't force it,
we can't control it. We can't manifest, you know,
having a dream. So is this something for
everyone, or is it just something that comes upon some
of us? That's a true.
(13:04):
That's such a good question. I don't know 100% the answer to
that, but what I do know is thatthis is God's most common mode
of communication in Scripture, and there must be a reason for
that. I figure everyone sleeps and
everyone dreams. Like scientists tell us that we
all dream for one to two hours of night.
(13:25):
It's a it's a product of our natural physical mechanisms.
Dreaming has a therapeutic effect.
It heals us and restores us as we sleep.
It's almost like house cleaning for the brain.
So in the midst of that, God canspeak.
But I think that the defining difference about those who have
God dreams and those who don't, people who are aware that it's
(13:46):
possible, because often I think,you know, there's that famous
verse in Job, it says, why do you complain that God doesn't
speak? For God does speak now one way
or another. He speaks in a dream, in a
vision of the night, but you don't notice it.
And I think it's just about being alert to the possibility
(14:08):
that God could speak this way. It's not thinking, Oh my gosh,
every dream I have is from God. It's, it's, that's not true.
Obviously not because not every thought we have is from the Holy
Spirit in the same way. And it's, it's quite unhelpful
to think that that's the case. But sometimes God does speak in
this way. So it's just being alert.
(14:29):
And I think as we come to God and we say, God, speak to me
whichever way you choose, and I'm going to be alert.
My eyes are open. I have ears to ears to hear and
eyes to see what you are saying,however that comes.
So thanks for that. Yeah.
So being more alert. So can you unpack that?
(14:50):
What would that look like? Does that mean paying more
attention in the mornings the second you wake up?
Did I have a dream? Is that from God?
You know, could you just kind ofexplain a little bit more how we
can do this practically? Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think first of all, well, it depends on your
personality. I think some people will just
go, look, just go for it. Just before you go to sleep
tonight, just pray and pray God speak to me and then wake up and
(15:11):
take note, you know, you know, the dreams we have as we wake
disappear within 5 or 10 minutes.
And often it's that last as we that slowly waking up time that
that God can speak in that that little window of time.
But for, for me, what was helpful for me as well, because
I'm a bit of a thinker, is to actually look at the testimony
and scripture and see the legitimacy of it.
(15:32):
You know, Jesus would have been murdered as a baby if not for
God. Dreams.
There are 5 dreams in the Christmas story.
And I remember hearing that going is there?
I didn't know that I've heard the Christmas story every year
all my life and I never realisedthat without dreams Jesus would
have been murdered as a baby. I was profoundly, you know,
(15:56):
shocked by that. And then of course, Book of
Revelation in the Bible is full of it.
And, and perhaps it's because people haven't understood how
it's worked that they've rejected it.
So for whatever reasons that we have for rejecting that, I think
it's worth working through thoseand then just being open to, to
listening to the voice of God. And of course, dreams and then
visions, visions usually in our language, we talk about having a
(16:20):
vision while we're awake. So, you know, you might be
praying for someone and you get a picture in your mind's eye.
In that stage of your mind, in the realm of the imagination,
you see this picture come acrossand you might say something.
I remember hearing a story abouta woman, a young woman who was
praying for another woman. And she closes her eyes and
(16:40):
begins to pray for her. And she sees this image of a
yellow Peacock. So strange, right?
You know, that's not yourself because it's so weird because
there's no such thing as a yellow Peacock.
Anyway, she's standing as she's going.
What is that about? What does that mean?
What does that mean for this woman I'm praying for?
You know, how is she like a Peacock?
(17:01):
So what are you going to say? So good on her.
She said, oh, the guy, I'm seeing this picture, but I don't
know what it means. Perhaps you do.
It's a vision of a yellow Peacock.
And the person she's praying foris like, Oh my gosh, that's the
password for everything in my life.
Like all like computers. And I know.
(17:23):
And they realised and they reflected on together, they
realised it was like God was saying, can you unlock the the
deepest parts of yourselves to me?
Can you open up your heart to me?
But what a profound way to speakwithout words.
It's just so. You're listening.
So, so you're saying that even when we pray for people and we
(17:47):
see something in our mind's eye in that place of imagination,
that is, that is also included in the God dreams and visions,
that's what we're talking about.Yeah, the the terminology in
Scripture embraces both. And so, you know, people
sometimes talk about having an open vision where there's a sort
of an openness between the spirit and natural realm.
Anytime you see a picture, a message in pictures is what this
(18:11):
category is about as opposed to spirit words.
So it can embrace all of that because the principles of
interpretation are the same in the sense that God speaks in
picture form. What do you see?
It's more what you see rather than what you hear.
Did you know that dreams and visions are the most common way
God spoke in biblical history? And God still speaks in this
(18:33):
powerful and creative way today.Of course, not every dream is
from God. So how do we know when it is?
And how do we understand the strange scenes that appear in
our dreams? The globally renowned God Dreams
online course answers these questions and more.
It includes 6 teaching videos, adownloadable study guide, and
(18:54):
interaction with the God Conversations team.
We've kept the price super low to make it accessible to
everyone. Be equipped to hear God's voice
in dreams and visions. Register today at
godconversations.com/courses. Welcome back to God
Conversations. My name is Allie Kennedy.
I am today's host on the podcastand I'm interviewing Tanya
(19:18):
Harris about her new book on Goddreams.
So Tanya, we were just talking about kind of the definition of
God, dreams and visions as we see them in Scripture.
And I was so encouraged because I actually didn't recognise, you
know, when I pray for people, I often get an image or a picture
(19:41):
and trying to communicate that. And I've, you know, you and I
have prayed over each other and we've, we've experienced that.
So I'm just encouraged to know that, you know, you sort of
expanded my understanding of what God dreams and visions are.
So my next question would be, and we're going to get into
really the writing of the book in a moment.
(20:01):
But before that, you know, how often, how frequently do you?
Receive God dreams in your own life.
You know, I had a previous boss at an organisation I worked for
and he would get, you know, for all the major decisions in his
life, he somehow he would get the and he would move on these
dreams. And so it was for him, you know,
(20:22):
it was the main Ave through which God spoke.
So I just wonder for you, you know, how frequent are God
dreams in your life? Yeah.
You know, God chooses when to speak and how to speak.
And I don't know if there's a regular pattern about how that
happens. I think it's like a
relationship. It ebbs and flows in terms of
(20:42):
it. For me, dreams are probably the
easiest way for me to hear from God because it switches off my
active brain. You know, I often wonder, God
spoke to Peter in a vision, you know, the story on the rooftop
of Doppler and he, it says that he was in a trance.
So he's probably sort of halfwaybetween awake and asleep, that
kind of mid space, and he sees the vision of the unclean
(21:04):
animals. And I asked myself the question,
why did God, you know, allow himto move into a trance state in
order to receive that? And perhaps it was because it
was a message he couldn't receive in his waking life.
And it was a bit more subtle andit required a little bit more
reflection because it was a message about the Gentiles that
would have been hard for Peter to hear.
But yeah, you know, I guess not.Not every day, certainly.
(21:29):
The thing about dreams is that our natural dreams can also have
insight into them. Yeah.
Our, our, we are made in God's image where our bodies are made
to behold, as are our minds. And So what we see is that
everyone dreams and can have natural dreams where they
experience insight into what's going on inside of themselves.
So for example, you know, if you're having a fight with
(21:51):
someone at work, you often you might dream of hitting them in a
boxing ring. Or you know, if you're if you're
feeling like really tightly bound or you, you've got no
options in life, you might see yourself running down an alley
where you can't, where there's no exit.
You know that. Or if you're feeling unprepared
for a test or an exam coming up in the dream, you turn up
(22:12):
without your clothes on because you haven't gotten ready.
You know, there's like anxiety dreams.
So we have those all the time. And I think in, in the, in the
understanding of God dreams, it's good to understand what
natural dreams are like as well,because then you can tell the
difference. Natural dreams tend to be
reflections of ourselves, whereas the God dreams, I think,
(22:34):
well, the, the Spirit speaks as the continuing voice of Jesus.
So it's always going to lead us to follow Jesus.
So they're, they're going to have that element to them where
God is leading us into a place of wisdom and freedom and truth
and understanding about what Godis like and about what our
mission is to bring God's heart to the world, to bring God's
Kingdom to the earth. So yeah, I think that whole
(22:56):
realm is is useful to understandwhether it's a God dream or
whether it's a natural dream. So getting into the nitty gritty
of the actual book itself, what what can readers look out for in
terms of the structure and and how you framed the book?
Yeah, the first few chapters area bit of a background, give a
bit of a foundation about what our dreams and visions.
(23:18):
It gives a a number of differentperspectives from psychology,
from neuroscience, from religions, different religions
in the world, and then from the Christian perspective.
And then it talks about what where they come from, where, you
know, natural dreams, spirit dreams and God dreams.
How do we know this source? And then we in the second half
of the book, we start to unpack the practicalities, the use of
(23:39):
language of symbolism and imagery and pictures, which is
an art in some ways because we learn to understand imagery.
For example, you know, one of the, the fun ones I had once I
was just, I'd been moving house in Sydney, where I live now for
many, many times over. Like I was exhausted from moving
(24:01):
house and I finally felt like I'd landed in a, in a place
where I could stay for a bit longer.
And I'd still, I'd just moved from Melbourne a year before and
I still had lots of things in storage and in boxes.
So just that week I had decided I'm going to clean my flat.
I'm going to try and make my room really nice.
I'm going to cover up the cardboard boxes with a cloth and
(24:21):
put, you know, put things in their place.
And I, I remember on this particular day sorting it all
out and I was really happy with myself.
I'm like, right, I'm settled at last and and then I kid you not
have this dream that night. And in the dream I see a caravan
and it is floating on a fast flowing muddy river.
(24:42):
I am in the caravan and I am, I'm thinking why am I in the
caravan? Why is my caravan on a mirror on
a river? Sorry.
And then what happens is the river water starts flowing
through the door of the caravan and messing up my caravan.
So I've got a broom. I'm sweeping out this river
water. I'm sweeping it out and sweeping
it out. It just keeps flying back in
(25:03):
because we're on a river. It keeps moving.
We're moving all the time. And I'm so I'm sweeping it out
and I'm so frustrated. And I think, what am I doing in
a caravan? Why am I living in a caravan?
And why are we on a river? And I wake up thinking that.
And my next thought is, Oh no, can you see?
Can you see what's coming, Ali? Can you see what it's saying?
(25:28):
So what kind of home is the caravan?
A mobile home. Yeah, yeah, it's always on the
move, right? It's still moving.
And this caravan's on a river. So lo and behold, a few days
later, my flatmate comes home and says, oh, I'm sorry, I'm
engaged, you have to move out. I clicked to move again, pack
(25:51):
everything up and move again. It was a beautiful heads up from
God to say you're going to be moving again, but don't worry,
I'm going to provide for you. But it's the symbolism, see.
And if you think about what a what is a caravan or a caravan
is a home that's always on the move.
And the frustration had been in the dream.
I was trying to make it all niceinside, but because it kept
moving like I had to, you know, it was, it was difficult to do.
(26:14):
Now the next dream that God gaveme, it was a dream about the
house that I was about to move into, which was a really good
dream. So, but yeah, it's about, it's
about understanding symbols. And so there's quite a lot of
the book that does that. We talk about the ABC's of
symbols, some of the most commonsymbols you see in a dream.
For example, people commonly dream of a vehicle, A, a moving,
(26:35):
you know, a car, a bus, a train usually represents, you know,
going from A to B. So it's my career, my some sort
of pursuit project or, you know,my ministry, whatever that might
be. Houses is probably the most
prominent. You think about what a house
does, what it means for us. Well, it's the it's the vantage
point for through which we see life.
(26:56):
It's it's who we are. So houses will often appear in
our dreams. And then you often get animals.
And so an animal might appear. And then we ask ourselves, well,
what is the distinctive part of this animal that's represented
here? And that's, that's the real key
to thinking symbolically, because these images and and
(27:17):
animals and objects and people even represent something.
So for example, the classic one is you might see an eagle in a
dream. Eagles often represent freedom,
sometimes vision and and they they fly above storms with very
strong, very, very free animals.Or, or then you might get a, you
(27:37):
know, a snail. What do you associate with
snails? Very slow.
As slow as a snail, you know, oras devious as a snake.
Yeah. So you can have all sorts of
symbolic imagery. I I love the one in Scripture
with the valley of the dry bones.
That's a very famous scene that Ezekiel sees and he just sees
(28:02):
all these dry bones that are scattered.
And here we have an image of death, no life bones.
And he as he, as he's watching these dry bones, a wind begins
to blow and they begin to shake and they begin to connect with
each other and they then begin to form into skeletons.
And then the wind blows and, youknow, the, the muscles come and
(28:25):
the flesh comes and sinews and ligaments and they all begin to
form into these corpses. And the wind continues to blow
and they all stand up in the, in, in the formation of an army.
It's like a zombie movie, you know it, But it's, it is
incredibly powerful imagery. And then God says these, these
bones are the hopes of my people.
(28:47):
They're dead. You know, it's such a powerful
way to communicate. No hope.
And then, but I'm going to blow.I'm going to blow my power and
my energy, my inspiration, my life into you.
And you're going to take form. You're going to be strong again.
You're going to be returned to your destiny.
You can really see when you start unpacking the stuff that
(29:09):
the picture tells 1000 words. Well, I'm so excited too.
Oh, go ahead. Yeah, I didn't.
I was just going to say then theend of the book.
Then we get to, we have a look at the Book of Revelation, which
is really fun. So we look at some scenes out of
Revelation and we interpret themusing the framework that's
introduced into the books, go through a bit of a process of
(29:31):
that. Yeah, Well, I, I mean, as you're
sharing some of these examples of dreams, I, I, I'm, I'm
thinking, gosh, I mean, people really do need some level of
equipping. Because maybe the reason why
people haven't, and this hasn't been popular, popular
popularised so much is that people are afraid of
misinterpreting. So, you know, what would you say
(29:52):
to that? I mean, how do we know if we're
interpreting incorrectly or incorrectly?
Yeah, that's the tricky part, because you could, I could tell
you a dream and then I could ask5 people what it means and it'll
come up with something very different.
That's what happens, you know? Well, you see the Book of
Revelation, like how many, how many commentaries and
(30:13):
interpretations are available? Like this means this and the
lamb is this. And then the, you know, the
dragon is this. And Oh yeah.
So one of the key principles of interpretation that is super
important, which is the one thatpeople most miss, is that you
interpret the scene in a vision or a dream against the context
of the person who's having it, the backdrop, the setting, what
(30:36):
is going on in their lives at the time, what is going on in my
life at the time. And this is so important.
For example, for Ezekiel, you can't understand the meaning of
the dream unless you really understand.
Well, actually, the nation had been in exile.
They're away from all the promises of God, their destiny.
They're hopeless. They're they're depressed.
They're, you know, by the riversof Babylon, we wept because we
(30:57):
remembered Zion. We want to go back there.
This is not where we're supposedto be.
Same with the Book of Revelation.
So you don't understand that fully until you understand what
was happening in the lives of John and the seven churches that
it was then communicated to. And when you understand that
that setting is based on late 1st century Greco Roman world,
(31:19):
the church was, you know, growing but not influential or
small. And it was faced with some of
the, the, the greatness of the Roman Empire.
And there's this beautiful opening scene in Revelation
chapter 4, which is my favourite.
I've been sitting in this place for a couple of years now.
(31:40):
And John sees the scene of a throne room and there is a great
throne with a rainbow around it and a sea of glass before it.
Then there's 24 elders seated onsmaller Thrones and they've got
crowns on their head and they lay them down before the one who
sits on the throne. And the one who sits on the
throne has a scroll in his righthand.
(32:01):
And you know, if you were a 1st century person living in the
Roman world, you would be familiar with the Roman throne
room. That's what would come to mind
is the throne room of Rome and who sits on that throne or the
emperor? And it's interesting to me that
the archaeologists found a statue of Demetian, who was
probably the emperor of the time.
(32:21):
And he, he's got, there's this big statue of him sitting on a
throne and he's got a scroll in his right hand.
He had 24 governors who ruled the provinces at the time.
And they would come to him with their crowns and lay them down
before the emperor because they wanted to carry his favour.
So what you've got here is you've got this scene and God's
going, OK, you're familiar with Rome and how Rome is governed.
(32:44):
But let me show you how the government of heaven is ruled,
because on this throne, it's notan emperor.
In fact, what we see is the story goes on.
It's a, it's a, it's a lamb. It's a sacrificial lamb.
It looks like it's been slain, this little fragile lamb.
And it's a weird looking lamb because it's got 7 horns and
seven eyes, which is again symbolism.
(33:09):
But if you understand that at that time, 7 is the number of
perfection in the ancient world.And horns are a symbol of
strength and eyes, obviously a vision.
This little weak lamb has strength, perfect strength,
perfect vision. This lamb rules God's Kingdom
(33:30):
rules it very differently because the lamb represents the
self sacrificial love of Jesus. And Jesus is on the throne and
his ways rule. And that secret to power and
authority in God's Kingdom is through Jesus's ways, not
through the ways of the emperor,which are, you know, in Rome,
the ways of Rome were violence and oppression and slavery.
(33:51):
And you know, they, they, the love of money, the love of
status and, and wealth. So you've got this beautiful,
powerful scene that contrasts the way of God with the way of
humanity. And it shows us how we live.
It showed the 1st century churchhow to live.
But then it has a relevance for us.
But sorry, that was a long answer to a short question, Ali.
(34:12):
But the setting is super important to understand.
Otherwise, you can stick any interpretation you want to.
Yeah, well, that was so helpful.Just that little bit there of
like, you know, you expounding on the the historical context at
the time. And that's what you're so great
at, Tanya, You're such, you're such a beautiful writer and
(34:33):
articulator of some of these details.
And I have so much confidence that this is going to help you
help your readers understand Goddreams and visions better.
So, you know, just, we just havea couple more minutes.
But what was challenging about writing this book?
I can't imagine it was all roses, was it?
Look, the hardest part for me was when I was getting into the
(34:56):
Book of Revelation, I have to admit, because because there's
such a wide plethora of interpretations out there.
And there's a back story to thatwas because, you know, I hadn't
read the Book of Revelation for years because it was all a bit
weird and strange. And I had been teaching God
dreams for about 10 years with God conversations.
And I, I, for some reason, I started reading Revelation and I
just automatically applied the principles of interpretation I'd
(35:18):
been teaching. And as I read it, it's like, of
course, that makes perfect sense.
And 90% of it, it was perfectly understandable to me once I
understood the interpretive principles.
Now some of it, some of it's still a bit obscure.
And we should be surprised by that because we are 21st century
people. We don't know the foreigners of
(35:39):
century. So it's hard to, you know, get
every detail. But remembering in that for the
early church, they would have understood perfectly what it
meant. And for them, it was the Holy
Spirit speaking to them as the continuing voice of Jesus,
reminding them of the truth of Jesus, what Jesus had
established, but then speaking about what that looked like in
their lives. And so the, the challenging
(36:01):
thing was, was working through abit of that and I joined a
scholars group, Revelation biblical scholars group for a
year and during COVID, actually trying to learn from the experts
because I'm not a biblical scholar and I don't pretend to
be so. But I think I think what's come
out is going to be really helpful for people.
So. So last question, what do you
(36:21):
want people to really walk away with in reading this book?
Well, I want to encourage peoplethat this is a whole mode of
communication that we are not aware of and we need to learn a
little bit more about this because it's one of the easiest
ways to hear God's voice, you know, for dreams, just fall
asleep and one of the really untapped areas.
(36:45):
And of course, it comes with allthose necessary boundaries and
safeguards about discernment. We need to do that as with any
God conversation. So we talk about that in the
book, but I encourage people to to get a hold of it and then to
be open to say God speak to me in this way.
I'd love to hear your voice because God really is a
(37:06):
masterful communicator and very clever at making his messages
clear as we listen and learn. Well, I can't wait to get my
copy. Where can people go to get a
copy of this book? I'll have to give you a free
one, Ali. I think it is.
It is available at godconversations.com.
(37:28):
We have all of our books are available there.
We have stores, global stores, but if you can't get it there,
you could always try other bookstores as well.
It'll be available on Kindle as an ebook and we're also doing an
audiobook which will come out. So the release, the launch date
would be September in the UK, soit will have just come out and
then October globally and then the audio book will come out a
(37:50):
couple months after that. Amazing, You have the best
voice. And so I'm certainly going to
get the audio version. And I just so appreciate you,
Tanya, giving me this opportunity and for you being
willing to be interviewed. And I know we just learned so
much today. And thank you everyone for
tuning in and go get your copy of Tanya's book.
Beautiful. Thanks so much Ellie, it's been
(38:11):
fun. Thanks for listening to God
conversations with Tanya Harris.Don't miss the next episode by
subscribing to the show and yourfavourite podcast app.
And remember, the Holy Spirit was given so we could all hear
God's voice. It was never meant to be a one
way conversation.
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