Contradictory Dreams? Here’s The Root Of The Matter & The Solution

Have you ever had dreams that seemed to go completely against what you knew God had already showed you about your future? I found out in the last few years that this is not so uncommon. I had to go through a process of beginning to understand why God may do this and what the deeper roots of a problem He is trying to work out from us in order to bring us to a higher level of maturity.

At the time of this writing, I have seen some of my contradictory dreams become settled to the point where I gained the understanding why I even had these dreams to begin with. And there are others going on right now where I have not yet seen them all get resolved. But what I do have now is the understanding of the Biblical pattern and the knowledge of why God will deliberately show things that do not agree with each other, not just in real life circumstances but in your dreams at night also.

If this has ever happened to you, keep reading. I’m going to give you what I’ve learned of this to date and give you the keys you will need to sort out anything that just seems to hard to understand.

Fear Has A lot To Do With It

The first example in the Bible I want to call attention to is the time when Jesus was on the boat with His disciples and He said something that caused them to react in fear and misunderstanding. I’m pretty sure you know this one? Check it out and see what happened here…

Now when His disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”
And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have taken no bread.”
But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread?
Matthew 16:5-8 (NKJV)

The disciples did not bring bread with them on the boat and Jesus starts talking about yeast (an ingredient that everyone knows is required in making bread). They just saw Him work a miracle of provision but they knee jerk reacted in fear because they suddenly now thought He changed His mind and was pointing a finger because they didn’t bring the thing He just made appear by miraculous means. The problem was fear and lack of faith and misunderstanding.

If Jesus did this to His disciples directly 2,000 years ago, why would you not think He’s going to do the same thing to us as well? I’ve noticed from my own experience that Biblical patterns repeat over and over. What we see there is what will happen to us. Why? Because humans have not changed! What we see the disciples doing is what we are going to do also.

The real problem here is not what happens to us in this situation but in how we choose to respond to it. The next passage shows what happens when we take the wrong response and why we must never do this…

Patterns Repeat

The second very relevant example to consider is how Jesus said things that were very hard to understand (and are still debated today!?) and this didn’t sit well with many of His followers. Rather than stopping and thinking about what Jesus said, they instantly jumped to a conclusion that He was saying something very different than what He really meant.

If you keep reading, He did not go after them and explain what He was saying! Nope, He just let them go. That’s scary if you end up like one of them. They could have stayed around and asked Him what He meant! But they didn’t, they just left.

The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”
John 6:52 (NKJV)

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?”
John 6:60 (NKJV)

This same kind of thing can and will show up in your dreams. You have to learn to differentiate between what God already told you versus something else He’s telling you now that has no bearing on that original thing. The problem with not being able to do this puts you in the realm of offense and turning away from God. This then causes you eternal problems because by turning away, you just willingly gave up your place with Him eternally and there’s no place else you can go but hell.

Stay out of that. Do not get into knee jerk reactions over things that don’t look right on the surface. Wait. Stop. Slow down and think. The devil wants you to turn away from God because of a misunderstanding. Have you ever noticed that God does not often instantly explain something to you? I have!

From my experience, if you pass the test of waiting for His explanation, you’re going to get the answer that will put everything into place. At least to the extent that you can continue on according to what God showed you from the outset.

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.
John 6:66 (NKJV)

Several Personal Examples – Past & Ongoing

I’m speaking from direct experience in this. I have had several occasions especially in the last couple years where God deliberately showed me things in dreams that did not make sense to me at all and looked like total contradictions to what I knew was ultimately right.

Yes, it was very confusing. Yes, it caused me problems. And yes, at the time of this writing, there are still some of those left unanswered but others that have been already answered and settled in a way that finally made sense to me!

One such dream was on the topic of a relationship (marriage type) and it was an entire year that went by before I found out why God showed me something that seemed to contradict everything He had initially shown me. Yes, I struggled with that for most of the entire year and I was very confused by it.

And after a significant length of time went by, I came to this realization that God was doing this deliberately to show me an error in my way of thinking that needed to be dealt with. So the real thing here was that God was trying to get something fixed in my character so I would not have a bigger problem farther down the road and make the same mistake.

What He does for me, He’s going to do with you. As always, take my example as a lesson for you. That’s the entire purpose of these blogs – to show what I’ve done right and wrong – for your benefit.

Fear – Offense – Misunderstanding – Immaturity

Most people, from my observation, and from my own church upbringing for several decades have zero understanding of the magnitude of the problem with offense. Offense and confusion have led many off the narrow road of salvation. I never understood it either until the last few years.

And I didn’t realize that I was full of this error myself. Just look again at the passages above – this is a common human condition rooted in fear that goes straight back to the Garden of Eden.

So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
Genesis 3:10 (NKJV)

So like I say, these are some things I’ve learned from past experience in the last couple years and there are some situations ongoing right now that as of today have not fully played out. So everything you see here is my way of putting down in concrete form in writing the things God has been showing me to help solidify the learning experience and at the same time, helping others who are going to find themselves in the same predicament.

Solution!

So I’ve done a decent job of showing the problem we are going to face. Great. The most important part here is the solution. And it’s something I’ve mentioned here in previous blogs. Two main verses come to mind, among others. The first thing we have to do when God tells us something is to have faith. We can’t please God without faith and yes, at times we are going to be a bit shaky. Yep, been there.

So the first way to combat doubts and fears over a confusing or contradictory dream is to not throw out what God first showed you. Put your faith in His initial instructions and stand on that firmly.

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV)

Next after this is to keep your mind in a state of peace. When you get into instability and fear and wavering, this gets you out of peace. We know from 1 John 4:18 that Anakin became Darth Vader because he started out with a major problem with fear and he never dealt with it. Fear led him straight down the pathway to the dark side.

Humm…oops. Ok so a really good illustration of Biblical truth in a popular movie, right? Yep! Go back and watch all those Star Wars movies again and this time follow the progression of Anakin and you’ll see what I just said here is 100% true – and it’s been in the Bible the entire time!

Peace keeps you on the straight and narrow road. Yes, we all have problems with that. Yes we have to learn this by experience in following God. Yes, I’ve had major problems with this myself. And God has taken me through the process of learning this and yes I’ve seen the progress.

Great peace have those who love Your law,
And nothing causes them to stumble.
Psalms 119:165 (NKJV)

Faith is a much bigger matter than most of us have ever realized. And it does way more than 99% of churches will ever tell you. Go back and see all the sonship-related blogs I’ve written and you’ll begin to see why this is true. You’ll begin to see how much we have missed by thinking so low of what our faith can do. Church realm stuff as opposed to true sonship level miracles – there’s no comparison!

Activating LEssons

This blog is an example of one of the “secrets” to blogging. The best time to write is sometimes right at the time you learn something. You can sometimes explain the matter best to others in a way that makes sense because the lesson is fresh in your mind. Sometimes, the longer you go after learning a lesson, the less will be able to communicate that to those who are right in the midst of that themselves.

So a blogger is not always an “expert” on a subject but rather they are just in the process of documenting what is going on in their lives at the time. If you read back over many of my blog posts here, you’ll see that’s really what I do. Much of this has been an active step in taking what God has shown me and reinforcing it to myself, while at the same time putting it out there publicly so others can benefit. Make sense?

Alright. So read all this over again as many times as you might need to. This subject of confusing and seemingly contradictory dreams will show up in your life, I can more or less guarantee it according to how I’ve described above. As always, see my contact information below and let me know if you’ve got any dreams or questions I might be able to help out with.

Thank you for reading and God Bless!!