Signposts: Daily Devotions

Written by Renée Miller

Wednesday, April 30

Then Solomon awoke; it had been a dream.
—1 Kings 3:15a

They can seem so real. Dreams, that is. While we are safely in slumber, images and sensations, emotions and ideas brush past the canvas of our consciousness like phantoms. Shapes and colors meld together to create a moving picture that can bring us to a point of terror or fill us with the deepest joy.

We can be so completely engrossed in the dream that when we awake we are surprised to realize that it wasn't real. We may feel the need to tell someone about our dream and give it the same reality in the day as it seemed to have in the night. When all is said and done, however, the dream may be an incredible panorama of what is bubbling up in our waking lives, but has no true physical, tangible reality.

There are times when our waking life is just as ephemeral as a night-time dream. We live as if the only truth is the events and stresses of our day. We go about our tasks like automatons, never considering that we have actually gone to sleep in the midst of the busy-ness and have lost touch with the throbbing beat of our existence.

A throbbing beat that calls for our attention. A throbbing beat that is the doorway to creativity. A throbbing beat that reveals new plans, new adventure, new potential. It might be good to pinch yourself and see if you are just dreaming or if you are awake to the flow of life.

O God, wake me from the daytime dream that has tricked me, leaving me detached from the creative life you have given me.

The Signposts for April are written by Renée Miller and originally appeared on explorefaith.org in May 2004.