Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Summer Refresh: How to Judge Interpretations Like a Boss
125 Plays11 months ago
Originally aired in Episode 10 of Season 1, today’s Summer Refresh is all about alignment with what God is actually saying when it comes to judging the interpretation of a dream. Whether you’re interpreting a dream for yourself, others, or, if someone else is interpreting for you, we cover 4 valuable questions to consider as you are judging the interpretation of a dream.
4 questions to consider when thinking through interpretation:
- Is the interpretation or message in line with Scripture? His character + nature?
- Is there an inner witness, or knowing in your spirit, that this is from God?
- Does this message or interpretation draw you closer to God, or cause you to feel further away from Him?
- Does this message or interpretation line up with what God is already saying to you through other avenues? (People, Scripture, other dreams, prophetic words, etc.)
Margaux also lays down some key ‘tent pegs’ to keep us in alignment with God’s heart and within the bounds of spiritual wisdom as we judge the interpretation of dreams. This includes being aware of any lenses we might be wearing that could cloud us from seeing the way God wants us to see, or color the interpretation in a way that isn’t the heart of the Father. To learn more about these 4 questions and uncover the specifics of common lenses we can wear while interpreting, check out this episode of the Summer Refresh series!
*Scripture References: Matthew 10:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:21; 1 John 4:1; Galatians 5:19-23; Psalm 23:2-3; Exodus 34:6; Romans 12:19; Matthew 11:28-30; Isaiah 46:10; Acts 10:34; Ephesians 1:18-21: 2 Samuel 22:33
“What God is speaking through a dream is always redemptive, it always comes from His voice and it’s usually to lead you, or to correct... or to speak truth, healing, and alignment.”
“He is not afraid to brag on us. He is not afraid to call us out to be great…to be beautiful, and to stand in the fullness of who we are."
More on Breathing Underwater Membership HERE
Interested in 1:1 coaching with Margaux: Free Consultation HERE
Join the Community and Newsletter HERE
Email: margaux@permissiontoreign.com
Instagram: @permission_to_reign
Intro Music by Coma-Media from Pixabay
Image by Claire Fischer from Unsplash
Recommended![I Am Doing a New Thing [prophetic word] - Isaiah 43 image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/63e84c28832e33f4732dbf78/8212b14c-3801-4d31-a72d-e5fe26bc8337.png)
Transcript
Season Launch and Focus
00:00:00
Speaker
Opening this September is a fresh season of the Breathing Underwater membership. If you're ready to dive into God's voice in your dreams and in your life and grow in a prophetic community, this is the place for you. We'll be having an open house in August, so keep your ears peeled for that, and there's more details in the show notes. This is Breathing Underwater, the Summer Refresh Series.
Seeking Divine Wisdom and Spiritual Mysteries
00:00:30
Speaker
We were designed to hunger for the deep things of God, to thrive on faith and wonder, to seek out divine wisdom that defies human logic. We were designed to unlock the mysteries of God. This is Breathing Underwater.
00:00:59
Speaker
Listen to me carefully. Listen to me carefully. I want you to listen. Listen to me carefully. Listen to me carefully. I need you to listen to me carefully. My name is Margot. I am the host of Breathing Under Water. This is episode 10. And I don't actually talk like this, but I am in the spirit of Judge Judy today. And I wish she could actually be my co-host because today in episode 10, we are talking about judging the interpretation of our dreams.
00:01:32
Speaker
Yes, for those of you who are very excited to have a gavel and maybe wear a robe, this is your moment. This is your area where you have God given authority to wrap that gavel and you get to decide and judge. Yes, that is in, no, that is out. Order, order.
Dream Interpretation and God's Communication
00:01:53
Speaker
For those of you who are new to the podcast, we are a dream interpretation podcast and we believe that God speaks to us through our night dreams. And we are learning to discern and decipher what he is saying by knowing his character and by knowing some key tools. So, so far in the podcast, we have gone over foundational truths, biblical truths about God speaking through dreams. but also we've talked about symbolism and metaphorical language and parable as well as we've been doing some live interpretations where there's just a ton of wisdom gleaned there. And today is going to be a shorter podcast but a really important one on judging interpretation
00:02:34
Speaker
This actually, I believe, is like a tent peg that needs to go into the ground. This is a pillar in this whole realm of learning spiritual wisdom because as we are going deeper into spiritual things and we are discerning and sensing and feeling and hearing, it's really important that we have some boundaries, that we have banks on the river, that we're learning to be wise.
Judging Dreams and Spiritual Discernment
00:02:58
Speaker
Scripture says as shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves. When we're talking about judging things in the spirit, we need to be shrewd as serpents. And so what fun. Get your gavel, put it in your hand. You ready to go?
00:03:16
Speaker
Okay. But before I jump into that, you can keep holding your gavel. I'm going to tell you quickly the meaning of number 10, symbolism for number 10. I love to give interpretation for numbers, especially aligning with the episode number, because God speaks through numbers all the time, whether in our dream life or our waking life or through scripture. He speaks through numbers. And so 10, speaks of perfect or complete order.
00:03:48
Speaker
Yes, God has an order. He has an alignment. And how perfect that today we are talking about the order, judging in God's order. And so what we're going to talk about today is absolutely in line with that. And we are going to partner with God's order so that we are walking in wisdom and we are aligning ourselves with what he is actually saying. Because I don't know about you. I don't have any interest in putting some meaning on my dreams just to make me feel good. I want to know what he's actually saying. I want to be in relationship with him. I want to be aligned with truth. That is so important to me. So as we go deeper into interpretation, whether we are receiving interpretation from someone else, meaning we share our dream with them and they have ideas of what the interpretation is, or we're judging the, or we're interpreting ourselves, it's important we know how to judge and discern if the interpretation is correct.
00:04:45
Speaker
Now, the reason that we as the dreamers get to have the gavel is because the dreamers are the ones that should be judging the interpretation in the same way with prophecy. If someone gives you a prophetic word, you have the divine responsibility of deciding whether you're going to keep that word or you're going to flush that word. And you get to decide that based on some really important questions we're going to go through here in just a moment. So the judging of the interpretation belongs to the dreamer. So those of us who are interpreting for someone else, we have to learn to let go. We might have an interpretation that we believe is from God and we have a lot of confirmation on it.
00:05:26
Speaker
But we offer that to the dreamer, and they're the ones that get to decide, they the they're the ones that get to hold the gavel on this in the same way that we get to for our own dreams. So it's an exercise in letting go. If you're familiar with Scripture, you'll know these ones. But Paul talks in 1 Thessalonians 5 about prophecies. He says, don't despise prophecies, but test all things and hold fast to what is good.
Testing Spirits and Divine Origin of Dreams
00:05:52
Speaker
This is judging here, testing all things, judging all things. In 1 John 4, it says, do not believe every spirit, beloved, but test the spirits to see whether or not they are from God. So this is just another reminder and confirmation. We're hearing more than one spirit. We're not only hearing the Holy Spirit. We need to be able to test the spirits. We need to judge the spirits and to be able to discern the ones that are from God or not.
00:06:20
Speaker
I'm going to give you four questions here that I advise you just keep near you when you are reading through your interpretation or you're praying or thinking through your interpretation to just roll these around in your spirit as you're coming up with the interpretation of your dreams. And the first question is, is the interpretation or the message in line with Scripture? Now, what I do not mean is, can you find this exact example or story in the Bible? Because oftentimes, in our modern times, what we're dreaming is not going to be found exactly in Scripture. And we are not being legalistic about this. But what we want to do is recognize, does this interpretation align with how Scripture talks about God's character?
00:07:06
Speaker
What does scripture say about who he is? What does scripture say about the kinds of advice he gives us? Does this align with that? Here's an example. In Galatians it talks about the fruits of the spirit. There are nine fruits of the Holy Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Those are all beautiful fingerprints, if you will, that Holy Spirit is close. So if we're experiencing interpretation that has the Holy Spirit's fingerprint on it, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, those elements are gonna be highlighted. They're going to be present. If we're experiencing an interpretation that is not those things, that is outside of those things and feels like condemnation and feels like anger and feels like impatience, feels like judgment,
00:07:56
Speaker
It feels like betrayal. These are all the opposite of the fruits of the spirit here. And so we know that interpretation is not from God that is out of bounds, wrap the gavel, do it. It's so satisfying. You might've had a dream that had those experiences in it. You might've had a dream where you were experiencing a betrayal. You might've had a dream where you were experiencing someone being impatient with you or you being impatient with yourself. But that's not the interpretation. What God is speaking through a dream is always redemptive. It always comes from His voice. And it's usually to lead you or correct in some way or to speak truth in in healing and alignment.
00:08:36
Speaker
He is our father and he is our shepherd. So he's our leader. He is leading us and he is teaching us and he is healing us and he leads us beside still waters and he restores our
Reflecting God's Nature in Interpretations
00:08:46
Speaker
soul. So the interpretations are going to be life. They are going to feel like life. Exodus 34, 6 says, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness. This is another example of scripture describing the character of God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. This is his character.
00:09:15
Speaker
Some of the ways we interpret things, we take them on because we're so used to receiving abusive language or we're so used to experiencing corrective um corrections that feel condemning or feel shaming. But that is not the way God speaks to us. That is absolutely not the way He speaks to us. And so we have got to learn to toss those out and look for the real interpretation that is from His character and from the Spirit.
00:09:45
Speaker
Likewise, if you receive an interpretation from a dream where let's say you had a dream of um something that happened between you and a neighbor, some kind of injustice or argument, and you sit with the interpretation or receive the interpretation and you believe that God is telling you that you need to go confront that neighbor and take back the stuff that you let them borrow and give them a good talking to. That might feel really good. That might feel like you're really justified, but that is not in line with scripture because God actually expects us as his kids to let him be the one that repays and to let him be the one that takes care of those things. Now, I'm not saying he's not going to lead you to have wise conversations or to go and actually confront a situation. I'm not saying he's not asking you to do that, but we need to test the spirit of this thing.
00:10:37
Speaker
Because it says in, let's see this example in particular, Romans 12, 19, do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath. For it is written, it is mine to avenge and I will repay, says the Lord. If you're experiencing this desire for revenge and you're thinking God is actually affirming that, that is not aligning with scripture. Toss it. The second question that I would ask is, is there an inner witness or an inner knowing saying that, yes, I know this to be true. I'm hearing this interpretation and I am witnessing in my spirit that yes, this is true. This is from God. That one's hard to explain, but you've all experienced that inner knowing, that inner witness, if you will.
Aligning Interpretations with God's Principles
00:11:20
Speaker
The third question I would ask is, does this message or this interpretation draw you closer to God? Or does it make you feel further away? This one feels like a really clear fruit to me because God is speaking to us through our dreams for relationship. Primarily, that is His emo in everything. is he wants to draw us near to him. He wants to come closer. He wants to speak to our hearts. He wants to lead us. He wants to correct us. And even in correction, meaning he's going to be showing us a place in our life that we've gone astray or we've gone the wrong way. Even in correction, it's a feeling of conviction, which is that kind of like hurts so good feeling where even though, ouch, that might sting because I just saw what I did wrong, I feel so loved because you're actually showing me the right path.
00:12:11
Speaker
Even in correction, I feel drawn to God because I feel loved by what he just showed me and I want to turn around. I want to change my mind and turn around. Where if correction is coming through condemnation, that just makes you feel like you suck. It makes you feel like you're a worm. It makes you feel shame, guilt, anger that don't actually draw you closer to God but make you want to hide, make you want to go further away. That is a fruit that it is not from the Lord. So does the interpretation draw you closer to Him or further away?
00:12:44
Speaker
And finally, the fourth question I would ask yourself is does this message or this interpretation line up with what God has already been saying to me through other through other avenues of guidance, whether that's through scripture or through my prayer time or through other people who've been speaking into my life. Does this already line up with what he's been saying? I would say the majority of the time, the messages i'm I'm receiving through my dreams is really a confirmation of something that, even if I'd only thought of it once or talked to God about it once, it's usually confirming something. It's usually something that has already been inside of me where I can go, yep, I kind of already knew that.
00:13:24
Speaker
There are times when it's not that way. There are times when a dream is the first introduction to an idea or something along those lines.
Confirmation and Avoiding Bias
00:13:31
Speaker
And if it is, you are going to get confirmation quickly from these other avenues of your life. So if it feels a little foreign or if it feels like the first time God has brought something up to you and it's aligning with all of these other ways that we judge, then I would just ask him for confirmation. Honestly, I do that all the time anyway. He is not afraid to give us confirmations. He wants us to feel confident that we know that we're hearing him and the fact that we know we're human and we mess this up sometimes. Sometimes I got to hear it six or seven times, you know, and I'm like, okay, thank you. Yes, this is it's real. But he's slow to anger.
00:14:07
Speaker
He's patient, abounding in loving kindness, and he's a good dad, you and he loves to confirm what he's saying. So don't hesitate to ask him for confirmations if you need that.
00:14:19
Speaker
Shifting gears a little bit here, I'm going to speak to this next part of really being spiritually wise in judging interpretation is being aware of our lenses, of the lenses that we might have. We've all got them. And these are lenses that we can sometimes wear that we will judge or discern things through that are cloudy. They're cloudy. They're clouded. They are colored in some way, shape, or form. And one of the lenses, one of the ones I want to start with is speaking of the lens of personal agenda.
00:14:57
Speaker
It's important that we come in to the judging of interpretation and the receiving of interpretation with our hearts in neutral, if you will. It's easy with particular kinds of dreams, especially if the content feels really personal or really close to a personal desire or involves people that we are close to or intimate with. It's really easy to come into the interpretation process with a personal agenda, with our hearts not in neutral, but already in a gear where we're wanting to go a certain way. And that's okay. It just takes an adjustment to come in and say, God, I actually want to hear what you are saying. The interpretation of this dream is I don't want to interpret it through this lens of my personal desire and personal agenda.
00:15:45
Speaker
Now, it's so cool because God is all about our personal desires and He's all about what's on our heart. And so often He is speaking to us about the very things that we're asking Him about and that are close to our hearts. So it doesn't mean He doesn't speak to these things. He absolutely does. But it can be easy for us to think we already know what he means in a certain area because we have held on to some personal agenda that we really want this, we really want this dream to mean this. Or, I'm really afraid that this this dream means this. So we're coming in with a lens of fear or foreboding. And that's not gonna give us clear interpretation either. So we need to just be coming with our hearts in neutral and letting the actual interpretation come.
00:16:30
Speaker
I am not interested in knowing an interpretation that is not from God, that is not true. Like that is just going to lead me into disappointment and deception and frustration, and I don't really understand the point of that. But it's easy for us to not even know we have lenses sometimes. So this is why I'm bringing this up. We are becoming really, really wise. Another example of a lens could be, I mean, there could be all kinds of lenses, religious lenses, shame lenses, disappointment lenses. I definitely at times have a religious lens that I can interpret the word of God through. Whether I'm interpreting scripture through that or what he's speaking to me through my dreams, I have to watch it because I have had actually a ton of freedom and gone through a ton of healing from religious mindsets, which I think is pretty important for any of us who have grown up in the church to do. Whether we even know it or not, those religious mindsets are there. They just come through the generations and they're there.
00:17:27
Speaker
And even though I've had a great amount of freedom in this and I actually believe I'm really called to and have authority to expose the religious mindset and the religious spirit, I still have to watch this. I totally still have to watch this because I've got blind spots. And if I'm not paying attention, I could be interpreting my dream through a lens of condemnation, self-condemnation, or performance, this little thing that sneaks in of like, oh, God's telling me I just need to pray a little bit harder. Or maybe I need to fast now, and then this thing will happen. And listen, maybe he is talking about fasting. Maybe he is talking about those things. But if he is speaking about that, it would be in partnership with him, not because all of this responsibility is on me to make something happen, or this works mentality, if you will.
00:18:19
Speaker
if i prayed a little bit harder than maybe it would have happened. And so next time I need to just do better. That is so not the way that he works. That is so not the way that he works. God is all sufficient. He doesn't actually need our help. He loves partnership. He's all about partnership and co-laboring. And there are absolutely things for us to do and areas for us to do good works and to achieve and grow and build. But it's, we're pretty obsessed, I would say, in the Western world, especially with performing. We're pretty obsessed with doing more and going faster. And are we doing enough? And let me just tell you, I hear sermons still all the time.
00:19:04
Speaker
in churches that I really love and respect, where it ends up being like, are you doing enough for God? You know, are you, are you, is he waiting for you to get your butt in gear and to do more? And I just cringe because that religious spirit just makes me want to scream. This doesn't mean we don't have responsibilities. This doesn't mean he might not be stirring us up to actually take a step in faith or to come out of fear and take some action. But that is really different than laying a yoke on us saying, I'm waiting for you. If you're not going to do this, this thing's never going to happen. and
00:19:39
Speaker
I'm God, but I need you to actually accomplish this. You know, that that spirit and that attitude and that lens are really different. So we need to be really fine tuning our discernment in this. Like me, I have to be fine tuning my discernment in this. And I'll say, for those of us, any of you who've been walking with God for any period of time, he's so surprising.
Resting in God's Timing
00:20:01
Speaker
Surprising and not surprising. So often he is saying rest. So often he's like, let's just, we're not going to strive. Take my yoke upon you. It is easy and my burden is light. Be still and know that I'm God. We think, okay, I need to do more and maybe I didn't do this. And he's like, be still and know that I'm God.
00:20:21
Speaker
His timeframes and his pace are very different than ours. Very different than ours. And even in times of acceleration or great movement. So often it's not at our effort. It's actually at his spirit, doing the moving, having all the power. So this is just an exercise and learning to know his character more and to know his voice more. And we just practice, practice, practice, and we're always getting better. We're always getting closer to him. We're always knowing him more, just like you would grow in relationship with anyone.
00:20:57
Speaker
I'll give one more example of a lens, and then I'm going to release us for today. But you could be having a shame lens, in which case you might be receiving interpretation through the lens that you're just not enough, or it's your fault, or if you were just more.
00:21:16
Speaker
I think the orphan mentality comes into this too. Like, oh, that couldn't be the interpretation because God doesn't do those types of things for me. He does those for other people, but not for me. I'm on the outside. I'm in shame. I'm less than. These can be really tricky. These can be really easy to think, oh, this is actually a holy mindset because I'm just being humble and and not wanting to assume, but this is actually not the way God speaks. He is not afraid to brag on us. He is not afraid to want to call us out to be great and to be beautiful and to stand in the fullness of who we are.
00:21:55
Speaker
He is also not a respecter of persons, so He does not give certain things to some people and not to others. If you see God giving favor to someone in a certain area, it is because He's doing something in that particular area with them where they're going to need that favor, but He has that same favor for you in your area. Or maybe it's a very, ah just a testimony of the very thing that you desire that you haven't received yet. If you see someone else receive that, that is just an indicator that this is what God does and he's wetting your palate so that you get to say, I want that to God. If you did it for them, you will do it for me.
00:22:29
Speaker
It's really easy to to hide behind this shame lens. It's like so innate at times in us that we don't even know we're looking through it, but let's just pay attention to that. Let's just pay attention to
Responsibility and Prayer for Wisdom
00:22:40
Speaker
that. And let's just be extra discerning in and self-aware in thinking about lenses and extra intentional of keeping our hearts in neutral when we come in to judge the interpretation, okay? It might seem like a lot of responsibility. Like I said, God trusts us. He trusts us to learn and to come to Him, to help us discern and judge. And it's really all unto knowing His character more and learning to be in His order.
00:23:16
Speaker
So, before we close today, I'm just going to close with a prayer that I think is appropriate. This is a a common one from Ephesians 1, 18, and I'm going to just pray this over you guys, that as we step into more wisdom, as we start to carry our gavels with authority, and we decide we want to judge, we want to judge in righteousness, not in selfishness, not in fear, we want to judge in righteousness. and God's order over our dreams and interpretations. this is This is important that we receive. So God, I ask that the eyes of their hearts may be enlightened so that they might know the hope of your calling, that they might know the riches of your glorious inheritance in the saints and the surpassing greatness of your power to us who believe.
00:24:11
Speaker
These are in accordance with your working of your mighty strength, which was exerted in Christ and raised him from the dead and seated him at your right hand in the heavenly realms far above, all rule and authority, all power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this present age, but also in the one to come.
00:24:33
Speaker
Take heart, everyone, that he is so eager to enlighten the eyes of your heart, that you would know the hope of your calling and the surpassing riches that he has in us, the saints. and that He wants to show you His great power for us who believe. And He has been set far above all rule and all authority and all power and all dominion and every name now and forever. So if you're receiving an interpretation where they're calling God powerless or it feels like God is powerless or you're stuck and there's no way out, oh, that is flushable.
00:25:13
Speaker
2 Samuel 22, 33 says, For who is God except the Lord? Who but our God is a solid rock. God is my strong fortress and he makes my way perfect. His name is far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is named now and ever will be named. And so God, we thank you for your wisdom as we learn to be discerning and we learn to judge what you're saying to us. um men Amen. Amen.
00:25:45
Speaker
Lovely to be with you all. I would love to hear from you like always. I have my email on the show notes. Join our community. Tell me what you're enjoying. Tell me what you're learning. And and until next time, happy dreaming.