When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint, even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions ... – Job 7:13-14

Today’s Scripture Reading (May 28, 2018): Job 7

I dream. But more than that, I actually remember my dreams. Often my dreams are weird, like some kind of drug infused mania. But occasionally they are disturbing. And sometimes they are scary. And while I dream weird, disturbing and scary dreams, they are seldom a mystery. Last night I dreamed a disturbing dream. Even now as I sit in my office with the sun streaming outside, I can remember the dream, and it continues to disturb. But I don’t have to guess about the reason why the dream occurred. I have a meeting coming up that I have been working hard on, I am stressed, and there is no doubt that it was that meeting that sowed the seeds for the dream.

I need to stress that I am not a prophet. My dreams seldom, if ever, concern the future. My dreams dwell in the events of the past; they concern the things that I have already experienced and not things that are yet to happen. My dreams are dominated by the Ghosts of the Past and Present; the ghost of the future seldom makes an appearance.

I had a dream last night, and it was a disturbing one. The thing that you need to know is that I was tired, and I went to bed fairly early, at least for me. I wanted to get a good night’s sleep and then get an early start on the day. But that was before the dream. I know this about myself. When I have a disturbing dream, my sleep is likewise disturbed. So while I may have gone to bed because I needed to sleep and to rest, the reality is that because of the dream I did not get the rest that I needed.

I think Job understood that feeling. As he talks to his friends, he says that in his exhaustion, and very likely in the midst of a heavy depression, he is lured into his bed. Sleep is an escape from the perils of the present. But even in his sleep, he cannot find the needed rest. Even when he lays down and closes his eyes on his bed, the reality and nightmare of his present situation and all that he has lost intrudes, and he is left having slept but not having rested.

For Job, it would have been better if he could have been visited by the Ghost of the Future, after all, we know how his story turns out. Relief is coming, even though nothing can really replace all that he has lost. But in this moment, all he knows is the torment that visits him during the day, and invades his dreams at night. And all he can do is trust God that there might be some kind of purpose to it all in the end.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Job 8