connecting with your spirit 165
Although many people may think that they don ’ t dream, they
simply don ’ t remember their dreams. We all dream. If you believe
that we can experience God and the realm of the Spirit, then
dreams may be one of the most common avenues through which
God communicates. Many of the world ’ s religions have maintained
that humans can experience God; from Judaism to Christianity,
to Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and the Chinese folk reli-
gions, we fi nd in each one the contention that we can come
into contact with God. They all have developed methods of
prayer to achieve this contact. Throughout the Old and the New
Testament, stories describe how God approached human beings
through visions, dreams, voices in the wilderness, and a variety of
other unique ways.
In Morton Kelsey ’ s book Dreams: A Way to Listen to God , he
summarized his theological and historical perspective on our
openness to dreams as a means to communicate with the Divine.
He stated that “ Jesus also introduced two completely new ideas. He
taught that we may call upon this power that rules the universe
and may address this very power that staggers our imagination
with the word ‘ Abba ’ , ” which means ‘ Daddy ’. ” He went on to say,
“ The second idea Jesus introduced was that the Kingdom of God
is within us and among us. ” He elaborated that in addition to God
manifesting through dreams, healings, miracles, and prophecies,
Jesus and his followers were convinced that Abba, if sought like a
daddy, wanted to actually reveal Himself to those who turned to
Him in sincerity and silence. He explained that Christian philoso-
phies of the last 350 years have often overlooked or minimized the
fact that our Creator wants to come into contact with us, and that
we can actually know this God. He also briefl y described how a
“ division arose between the Church (who didn ’ t want her author-
ity questioned) and the secular world because the Church refused
to tolerate, let alone encourage, the sort of scientifi c thought that
allowed humans to discover that the earth revolves around the sun.
The church ’ s intolerance of this inquiring spirit forced scientifi c
thought to develop on a completely secular level and to become
antireligious to the point of maintaining that human beings have no