Dream prayers

Last night, I had a dream about one of my colleagues. I was particularly struck by the dream because in it, I found myself praying over, for, and with him. This was highly unusual because we never pray together. I remember being somewhat conscious of the prayer, and was quite taken by it, because in that dream, I found myself praying for him all kinds of things that I wouldn't pray over him in "real life."

I don't get them much, but dream prayers can be interesting. We know that God can speak to us in dreams; we also know that dreams are a way for our subconscious to process emotions and ideas that we otherwise wouldn't be able to do in the waking world. (And I'll be darned if I let any of the fallacious ideas foisted by Inception take root in my subconscious.) So whether or not these dreams are "God-breathed," they certainly are worth praying about.

My relationship with said colleague is precarious at best. I have many issues with him, issues that I try to overcome or deal with simply with prayer and according him the respect and honor due him by his position and age. I've had difficulty with the whole honor thing, though, because, like I said, I disagree with him on a variety of issues.

In the dream, though, I found myself praying over and for him with a sympathy I'd not known before. The dream me - which I was very conscious of as being me yet not me - was praying things for him that I personally wouldn't have. They were honest. They were open. I was surprised, quite frankly. It was almost as if my dream helped me process how I felt about that colleague, and in God's mercy, allowed me to see how I should treat him.

When I awoke, the first thing I said, literally, was, "Wow, God, are you asking me to pray for ?" A few minutes later, after the sleep-haziness had gone from me, I asked more lucidly but somewhat jokingly, "Does my dream prayer count?" I knew it didn't, so I prayed for him, and I know that how I treat him now and in the future will have been changed by that dream.

I'm currently listening to: Phil Wickham In My Love