Dale Johnson: This week on the podcast I have with me Keith Evans. He’s assistant professor of biblical counseling at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina. He’s an ordained pastor and Keith has been teaching at the Seminary level since 2018 and has been in pastoral Ministry since 2011. He’s married to Melissa. They have four daughters and currently Keith is completing his PhD in biblical counseling at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Keith, grateful for you brother and your work and really excited about your new role there at RTS Charlotte and maybe at some point we can talk about that but really grateful for your transition there. Welcome to the podcast looking forward to our time today.
Keith Evans: Thank you so much. Glad to be here.
Dale Johnson: Today we’re going to talk about troubled dreams. I have people ask questions: what do we do about that? Are we responsible for the things that we dream morally? How do we handle these types of situations? Should I confess these types of things, right? So, these are questions that lots of people have. As we think about counseling biblically, do we deal with these types of issues with our people? How do we stay away from Freudian dream interpretation, right, those sorts of things. So, I just want you to sort of dive in at the beginning. How do we handle these types of troubled dreams? Because they’re sort of on both sides where we dismiss them, “Oh, this is meaningless, and it doesn’t mean anything,” versus, you know, you get into Freudian dream type of analysis interpretation and that sort of thing. So, what do we mean when we talk about these troubled dreams? How do we start to discuss these?
Keith Evans: Yeah, absolutely. Just to tell a quick story along these very lines. I was interacting with a professor of biblical counseling, and he was sharing in his transition from church to church just kind of in his story of growth. He said he knew he needed to leave one church when they offered a 16-week course on dream interpretation and I kind of smiled and I said, “well I teach how to interpret dreams in my intro to biblical counseling class.” He said: “Yeah, but is it 16 weeks or 16 minutes? And I said, “Yeah, it’s 16 minutes.” You know just deal in brief of what do we make of these things and really at the foundational level if we believe that all things are under the sovereign control of a good and gracious God then we can ask the question like what do we do with this? I mean, how can these things be useful even in our sanctification and by that I don’t mean delving into what’s the meaning on the other side that we know we’re trying to find hidden meaning from these things. But can the Lord even use these things as we process them before the face of our God? Can the Lord use these things in our sanctification?
Dale Johnson: Yeah. I think that’s a good initial question that we have to be asking; some people might ask, how do we think about these in terms of God’s providence? You brought that issue up; if we start to think about understanding our dreams, what about the sufficiency of Scripture? How do we think about that? So maybe I’ll just pitch those two ideas to you first of all about the sufficiency and then as we think about dreams on the providence of God, how can our dreams be seen specifically as useful you mentioned that, and I’m intrigued to hear how you’re going to flush that out relative to our dreams being useful in our Christian lives thinking about sufficiency in the providence of God.
Keith Evans: Yeah. Absolutely, we definitely do not want to be unmoored from the Scriptures, and we start delving into this subject matter and saying, well, you know, this means this, and that means that, and you’re trying to interpret extra-biblical sources of meaning for our life. We really are very immediately unmoored from the sufficiency of Scripture. Even Joseph, when he was in the Old Covenant, and these dreams are being given for revelatory purposes, which Hebrews 1 says these types of things have now ceased, but even Joseph says, “Look, the interpretation isn’t with man, interpretation is with God.” And so even that is pointing immediately back to look at the sovereignty of God, the sufficiency of the way that God has spoken, and the way that God has revealed Himself. So, we have to be immensely careful with trying to take meaning and delve into kind of hidden meaning.
So, let’s stay grounded and moored on the sufficiency of Scripture. And as far as the usefulness in our Christian lives, as you were asking about there, if all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to his purposes then when I experience blissful dreams can I process that in a thankful way before the Lord as I wake up? Like, that was a pleasant night’s sleep, thank you Lord. Like I can be thankful before the face of my God. If I’m experiencing troubling content, even you know, morally objectionable content, whether it be violent or hateful or prideful like I’m puffing myself up and stuffing anger in my dreams or something or lustful content. How am I processing that? And am I processing that before the face of my God?
Dale Johnson: Oh, that’s good. And I love the way that you’re describing that in terms of God remaining in providential care over us and God remaining authoritative and ruler overall and we’re comparing whatever we’re experiencing even in the dream over and against how He sees things how He categorizes things in terms of good and evil and how we are to interpret and process what we just experienced through a night’s sleep.
Now, let’s get practical. Okay, because we’ve set this sort of, you know, we’re thinking about this through the lens of Scripture through the providence of the Lord, somebody walks in and how in the world do we handle something like this? Somebody says, you know: “Keith, I’m wondering how I process this crazy dream that I just had this week.” And I’m sitting in front of you, getting some counsel from you. Where do you go Keith? How do you think about that?
Keith Evans: Yeah, absolutely and I’ve been helped in this area by Puritans. Puritans are my area of study, Richard Baxter, a pastor writing in the 1600s, he has several thoughts for us. One of them is first and foremost bodily considerations. Are there ways that even my body contributes to dream content? I don’t know if you’ve had the experience or you eat a large meal before you go to bed and digestion just isn’t treating you well, or maybe I’ve watched a movie with my family and I’ve eaten too much popcorn. And anyway, it’s bothering me as I sleep or I’m not getting enough sleep or I’m getting too much sleep. I think these types of physical considerations are important for us to wrestle with of how that might contribute to troubling content.
But then Baxter is very quick to say, “Look, dreams are not sinful in and of themselves,” and that’s so freeing, right, for the person who is saddled with the burdens of “man, am I responsible for what I just dreamt, and do I have to repent for that?” Well, dreams aren’t something that we’re immediately in control over and so while the content is morally questionable or objectionable. We’re not having to repent for our dreams, but he does invite us to consider, “Okay, how can we set our minds on pure things during the day and not toward let’s say, you know a horror movie or horror books, because that’s coming out in our dreams then or are we setting our minds on lustful type thoughts during the day and then are we seeing that come out in our sleep and while our dream might not be you know sinful in and of itself how I’m fixing my mind through the day is important and I do need to consider that before the Lord and repent where I can repent and so those dreams can be an opportunity for me to even examine my heart more.
And then also as we reflect back on our dreams in the morning after we wake up are we just bothered by it? And we just kind of move on? Or are we asking the Lord to search us, to know us? “Lord, please help me. Please help me continue to root these things out of my life.” So, are we praying about them beforehand? Are we praying about them after? Are we processing them before the face of our God?
Dale Johnson: That’s good. And some may wonder, you know, are we talking about this is revelatory? You made that very clear, and I just want to reiterate that this is not. We’re not saying this is something that’s revelatory. But these types of realities are worth considering, I like the way that you described search me Lord for hidden issues in my life. I mean, this is something that David prayed as we see in the Psalms and that’s a healthy way for us to approach these things. You’re asking the question about categorizing this in terms of good and evil from God’s perspective. Is my response to this dream, does it categorize whatever happened in the dream in the same way God categorizes it? Is this something that was good and appropriate or just something that was evil? And so, making sure that your interpretation of that is lining up appropriately. I want to maybe dive just a little bit deeper as we think about being freed from these things. You mentioned maybe a couple of those things. Abstaining from certain things that you might watch or things that you might be reading or things that you’re thinking about on a given day and some, oftentimes, that appears in dream form and in some way. So, talk a little bit about how do we and how can we encourage ourselves to be freed from some of these troubling dreams, especially as we think about not having control over our mind as we sleep.
Keith Evans: We’re so thankful that when we do sleep, we have a God who neither slumbers nor sleeps. If what the first point that we made is true and it is true that God is sovereign over even our dreams, can we not approach sleep trusting Him asking Him to deliver us from these troubling dreams by faith, believing that He will in His good timing, in His providence He will free us from these things. So, as we’re drifting off to sleep, are we asking the Lord to give His loved ones sleep as Psalm 127 says and as Psalms 3 talks about “sleeping in the presence of all our foes”, that even in the face of this trouble we can trust a God who gives to us sleep and rest and we will rise again.
So, we’re thankful for a God who is sovereign even over our dreams. Kind of a last point on all of this as you were talking about the revelatory aspects once again, just one final point from Richard Baxter and I think it does take us back to where we began.
Baxter says not to make too much of our dreams. At the end of the day we can make too much out of these things and if we’re overly delving in an overly concerned, I think that that’s also kind of giving ourselves to these troubled dreams in an undue way. So not to make too much out of them.
Dale Johnson: This is helpful Keith and I appreciate it. This is a question that I’ve gotten over the years and is something I think would be good for our counselors to at least be prepared for and think about this theologically as we relate to God and who He is and then how do we help counsel these move forward in situations like this. So, thanks, bro for helping us think through it.
Keith Evans: Thank you.
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