Lay Off, Laban: Understanding Prophetic Dreams

Even people who have no spiritual life whatsoever still receive dreams from God, and they’re able to hear His voice this way.

In Genesis 31:23–29, God gave a dream to Laban, a man who didn’t serve Him or know Him. About the dream, Laban said, “The God of your father came and spoke to me.”

Laban obviously didn’t claim this God, but he still heard God’s voice.

That’s the first point with this dream. As God brings about His purposes on the earth, He guides people with His voice, even when they don’t recognize Him.

Some of us today have no idea God is speaking to us in the night. We just have a dream that impacts us, and it changes certain dynamics in our lives.

Second, when God gives us a dream, sometimes it’s enough to communicate the message without going into detail about what we saw. The Bible doesn’t tell us Laban’s exact dream—we only know what God said to him.

Third, as Laban discovered, God will bring correction and warning in dreams! He might tell us to stop doing something or not to go through with our plans. He does this to spare us from a price we don’t want to pay. When God stopped Laban from saying anything to Jacob, either good or bad, He was shielding Laban from pain.

As we pay attention to our dreams, we will learn amazing things about God’s heart.

God’s voice is life. To hear more about this dream and how He speaks, listen to this episode in The Dream’s Guy podcast. {eoa}

John and Dawna Thomas were radically saved out of the drug culture in 1996. Personally mentored by John Paul Jackson, they’ve been on staff with or have worked alongside Streams Ministries since 2004. John Thomas pastored The Bridge Metrowest (planted by Jackson) for five years before he and Dawna stepped out into full-time itinerant ministry. After Jackson passed away, John began to work more closely with the Streams leadership team and in 2016 was asked to become the president of Streams Ministries.

With his background as a pastor and a minister in various settings around the world, John has a unique perspective on prophetic ministry and the global body of Christ. He desires to see the church rise up in its authority and in the full power of the Holy Spirit, and his passion for God’s heart undergirds everything he does. He wants to help the bride of Christ respond with fervent devotion to the one who called her.

John co-authored The Art of Praying the Scriptures: A Fresh Look at Lectio Divina with John Paul Jackson and has also written courses on prophetic ministry, dream interpretation, and the kingdom of God. As president of Streams Ministries, he ministers internationally to help restore the awe of God to a world that has lost its wonder. He and Dawna live outside of Dallas, Texas.