Trying to Figure a Way Out?

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"While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream." (Matthew 1:20, The Message).

The Bible tells us that Joseph, the Nazarene carpenter engaged to Mary, was a noble man. Chagrined by the shocking discovery that Mary was pregnant, he sought to handle the matter with discretion, so as not to bring shame to Mary, or her family. And while he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream.

And that dream changed the world.

While the challenges you may be facing in these tumultuous days may not register on the same historic scale with Joseph's dilemma, nevertheless it is still true that God often speaks to troubled men in their dreams -- showing them what to do.

The Book of Job tells us, "For God does speak—now one way, now another— though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword" (Job 33:14-18, NIV).

Ask God to speak to you in a dream. Sometimes it's the only way He can get through all of our whirling thoughts and emotions, bypassing our natural disposition to debate what He is saying or doing in our waking lives.

Before you close your eyes in sleep tonight, pray the words of Solomon, "I sleep, but my heart is awake, listening for the voice of my Beloved!" (Song 5:2). You just might awake to a new day in the middle of the night!
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