The Question:

Almost a year ago I had a dream which I took to be God’s answer to a particular issue in my life. I often hear from God through dreams. This dream came to me on the fifth day of a five day fast seeking his will for this situation. However, after almost a year, nothing even seems remotely to be getting in line with my dream coming to pass. I had a friend tell me recently that maybe the dream isn’t valid anymore-that God has changed plans. Can this happen? If the dream had a stipulation or exception, wouldn’t God have let me know it clearly?

– GC, City Unknown

Does God change plans? (Part 1)

We need to discuss several things but the first one I want to address is the person who told you that “the dream isn’t valid anymore-that God changed plans.” NO, I would say that is not true. God does not change his plans; he isn’t double minded like we are.

We are likely to get into trouble though, when we put words into God’s mouth or we decide what his plans are. This speaks to the issue of how we interpret dreams. He tells us in Isaiah 55:8; “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways…for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your way, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Before we consider this dream, it is important to remember what we can know for sure about God’s plan for you. God’s plan is that you are made into the image of Christ; that your character is formed in his likeness; that you are prepared for eternity-your work and your rewards. Pulling back from the individual circumstances of your life and seeing things from this perspective is helpful particularly when something is not working out the way you expected such as your dream not coming to pass yet.

Know this to be true: “The Lord will accomplish what concerns me.” (Psalm 138:8) God has a plan for you and he’s on top of it and he will work every circumstance of your life to accomplish all that he has in mind for you. How does this dream fit into that?

Next: Why hasn’t the dream come to pass?

Interpreting and timing (Part 2)

I don’t know the full situation as to the issue in your life or what prompted the fasting but you are probably dealing with either interpretation or timing. Since you say that you often hear from God in dreams, I take it that you pretty much know how to discern that. We will make the assumption that your dream is definitely from God and not out of your flesh.

The possibility always exists that you have misinterpreted it. For instance, I’ll give you an example from my own life about how I saw a dream one way immediately and a more accurate way from a distance.

I dreamed about being in a fox hole with someone during a war and there was an actual war going on at the time. It was literally possible for this person to be called into the conflict. When I had the dream, I saw things from a natural perspective. But actually, the person was never called to war. It was not until eight years later that I saw what the dream really meant: there was coming a huge spiritual battle for this person’s soul and I would have to decide if I was willing to go into deep warfare (a fox hole) to wage it.

Sometimes we have to wait awhile to truly understand a dream. When it does not come to pass immediately, it does not mean that God changed his mind or that the dream was not really from him. It may mean that the dream has nuances of meaning we don’t yet grasp.

The other big issue with dreams is timing. If the dream truly came from God it WILL come to pass. Sometimes when we want something very much we press for immediacy and we interpret things to go our way-in our time. But God cannot be pressed to do things in our timing. He will always do things in the right timing-when he can bring the greatest blessings.

Continue to trust God for your dream and continue to expect that things will come together the way he indicated. Trust also that he is refining you and making you into pure gold until that day.