Dream Parallels in Scripture and Creation

by Jim Driscoll

When God speaks to us in our dreams, He often draws our attention to something that gives us greater understanding about something else.

Words are two dimensional, but pictures and metaphors are three dimensional and four dimensional. They can have depth and reveal timing; their stories convey tone and color and presence. They give us the "full picture" of what God is showing us. He doesn't limit Himself to spoken language alone. He uses everything, which causes us to seek Him for meaning, to know Him and His ways.

God Revealing Himself

There are incredible parallels between meanings in science, creation, Scripture, what God shows you in dreams, the way He made the universe to work, how physics works, how math works, how language works and often how colloquial expressions and idioms work. There are parallels and symmetry in almost everything. He doesn't need to make something up in order to reveal Himself to us. He doesn't need to invent a new metaphor that we don't see anywhere else in creation.

For example, the number two often means multiplication for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it has been programmed into the reproductive cycle. God made male and female mammals to multiply. You start with two and can have an exponential increase.

But biology isn't the only area in which we see the number two relating to multiplication. The ancient Hebrew character for the number two is bet, which is a picture of a tent. A tent denotes family: something that begins with two individuals and then multiplies. So in the original language of Scripture, the meaning of the number two parallels the biological meaning.

We also see that the number two can mean multiplication when we look at specific chapter and verse references in Scripture. An example of this is Acts 2:2, where the Early Church went from being a small group, just a few people in an upper room, to thousands in one day. It was a noteworthy multiplication, and it happened in chapter two and verse two. That is significant.

Knowing God Through His Handiwork

Because God is the Creator, we can study His handiwork and get to know Him at a deeper level. We can learn more about Him by examining certain principles we find in nature, in culture, in history, in science. Something may be a formalization of humanity, but God made what humanity formalized.

Obviously, the Bible is our chief source for the meaning of elements. But certain elements get used a lot in Scripture while others do not, and still other elements don't get used in a clear way that is easy to understand. God didn't give us a list of what every single item, number or image could mean. So what do we do with the elements He shows us that aren't clearly used in Scripture? We look for other references that God has allowed to come about. Then, as we see His truths align with all of creation, what is hidden in Scripture becomes more and more obvious.

This journey to understanding what things mean is a journey to know God and His ways and to hear His voice in its fullness and clarity. The more we do this, the more dependent we will find ourselves growing on Him. The closer we draw to Him, the more we will realize that He alone is giving us the understanding we have, and if He doesn't give it to us, what we have seems completely empty.

Jim Driscoll

www.stirthewater.com