How did he know it was God?

… An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt. (Matthew 2:13-14)

It looks so easy. Joseph falls asleep one night, has a dream and hears God telling him to leave… Yes that’s right, pack up the manger, wrap up the newborn and take your wife on another long donkey ride to a land on the other side of the desert.

So next morning he gets up, tells Mary over breakfast and heads off to Egypt... Just like that.

Easy. Joseph hears from God and catastrophe is averted. Because of this little episode, our Christmas cards show Jesus alive in Mary’s arms and we sing songs heralding his birth. Christmas pans out the way it was supposed to.

But here’s a simple question. How did Joseph know the dream was from God? How did he know it wasn’t just something sparked by his vivid imagination as he slept; a crazy apparition brought on by the stench of strange animals at his bedside… a paranoid idea because of the spicy lentils he ate the night before? There were no logical reasons for the radical departure; no tangible signs indicating danger. Yet Joseph confidently follows this strange voice of the night and baby Jesus escapes the murderous hand of King Herod.

Would it be that easy?

Have you ever heard one of those stories about someone who thought they heard from God, but they actually didn’t? Then there is all the damage and fallout from that. Or perhaps you’ve been one of them! You’ve thought you heard from God, you’ve made steps of faith and then the circumstances backfire. How do we know if we are hearing from God or not?

It’s comforting to know that this is not a new question. The ancients themselves had the same problem and the good news is that God anticipated we would ask it: You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?’ (Deuteronomy 18:21)

God has answers for our concern. His promise that we will be able to recognise his voice… Like sheep who know the voice of their shepherd, we can discern his voice and follow it. Listen to Signed, Sealed and Delivered on the CD Series: “God’s Curtain Calls” to find out more. You can purchase it here. A great Christmas idea!

The Dreamers of Christmas

It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at the outskirts of the crowded city. Their sandaled feet were dusty and swollen from long days walking through an endless wilderness. The young couple glanced about searching for a place to enquire for lodging. Unfamiliar sounds and foreign tongues added to their disorientation. A restless baby cried hungry for milk while his mother rummaged through their hastily packed belongings. The anxious expression on their weary faces hinted at their concerns: How long would they be here for? When would they return to their homeland?

I imagine the small talk as the weary travelers were introduced:
           “Greetings! You’ve come a long way. Where are you from?”
           “From our home in the land of Israel.”

           “Whose family are you of?”

           “The tribe of Judah.”
           “And what brings you here to Egypt?”

Have you ever wondered about the locals’ reaction to Mary and Joseph’s story? One mysterious dream led them to completely relocate to a foreign country. In the Greco-Roman world of the first century, it wasn’t unusual for gods to speak in dreams. This was nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

Like Mary and Joseph, it was a God-dream that led me to move to an unknown city some years ago. At the time I found it exciting. God was speaking so clearly and specifically! But when I began to share my story with others, eyebrows were raised and brows furrowed with concern. I realized I had been quickly labeled; placed in that box where all fringy mystical types go…

So I stopped telling people the real reason why I was moving. They didn’t seem to get it.

God-given dreams are found all the way through the Christmas story. The gospel writer Matthew records five of them. Apart from a dream, the baby Jesus would have been murdered! In fact, some of the most pivotal moments in biblical history began in the middle of the night while someone was sleeping.

So why the negative response to a contemporary parallel of Mary and Joseph’s experience? Why the gap between a beloved biblical story and our own spiritual reality?


A look back over our shoulder tells us why. At one time in history hearing from God through dreams was the norm. The prophets of the Old Testament heard from God through dreams regularly. The early church valued them for direction and revelation and the early church fathers all wrote of their dream experiences.

Then came the Enlightenment. A new emphasis on intellectual rationalism led church leaders to relegate dreams and visions to the archives of library shelves. Translators even left out references to dreams and visions made by the early church fathers in their English editions!

To our modern Western ears, talk of dreamers and dream interpreters seems to fall perilously close to New Age practises. But our fear of being deceived or getting it wrong has led us to abandon one of the most popular forms of God’s communication. In fact the ability to hear from God through dreams and visions is one of the key distinctives of the new covenant (Acts 2:17)!

There is no doubt hearing from God through dreams has its risks. But God has given us his Word, the Holy Spirit and his church as safety nets for us. With the right tests and accountability, we can experience the transforming and powerful dynamic of hearing God’s voice speaking into the very details of our lives through dreams. This is our inheritance as new covenant Christians. Are you ready to hear from him? Be ready for him to surprise you with his creative messages of the night!