Sid: Now one of the things that is so frequently mentioned to me is that “I have dreams, lots of them, but I got to the point that they’re all symbolic and I don’t know what they mean and I don’t want to guess.” And then we have other people saying “I’m not just sure if I’m hearing God’s voice or not” or “I don’t hear God’s voice.” So I’ve really been looking forward to interviewing Laura Harris Smith. And Laura I love the title of your book “Seeing the Voice of God.” You kind of do a double take on that.
Laura: (Laughing)
Sid: How in the world did you get into helping believers understand their dreams, hear the voice of God; how did that happen?
Laura: Hmm, well I oh I guess it was about 20 years ago I was freshly baptized in the Holy Spirit and I was going through a season in life, but I think it’s common to most people that you’re not hearing the voice of the Lord or you think that you’re not and you know you’re in a spiritual like a hearing drought of sorts. So basically my husband had stepped out of a very lucrative job to move into ministry and we had 5 children at the time and we needed a word from God on where we were going to go from there. We thought we knew we had tried that out nothing was succeeding and we doubted ourselves and Him and everything else. So you know I began to notice on bookstore shelves all these books entitled “When God is Silent” and “What to Do When God is Silent,” and it just grieved me. I thought “How can God have a mute button? How could He really withhold communication with His children?” And so I got on my knees that night Sid and I just said “Lord, I have to have a word from You; You must speak to me.” And I finally heard something and it was the oddest phrase; it was 5 days; days and instantly He downloaded this plan into me to get away for 5 days and read the Bible in 5 days. My father had a prayer cabin; he opened his doors for me to just come down there; my husband graciously took care of the 5 kids and I read through the Bible. Not to study Greek or Hebrew, or chew on anything but just to answer the question; “Is God ever silent?” And Sid, I never found one verse saying that He’s silent; I found plenty of verses like “If I regard iniquity in my heart He will not hear me.” But none that God wanted to be silent. And so what that made me do was set me on a quest to discover why we sometimes can’t hear Him if He’s always talking. The first thing that happened was I noticed he began to bypass my ears and go straight for my eyes. I started having dreams and visions and really seeing the voice of God.
Sid: You know what’s kind of interesting; I recently interviewed Randy Clark and he operates on what is called in the Bible “Words of knowledge.” But he went out to Africa and the Christians there explained they got most of their information through their dreams. And it’s like he never even thought about it. And now I’m reading your materials and you make a statement that just knocks you out so to speak. You spend a third of your life sleeping; now if you spend a third of your life sleeping look at a waste if you’re not communicating with God.
Laura: I know, I know it’s so true and people who say “Oh, I never dream” that’s why I wanted to include the two medical chapters, chapters 4 and 5 where I interviewed a sleep study doctor and I sighted all type so of studies on sleep and dream cycles. So yes you are having between 4 to 6 ream dream cycles each night; rapid eye movement cycles. And each one of those 4 to 6 cycles you’re having 4 to 6 dreams. So you’re having somewhere between 16 and 36 dreams every single night. So yes, if you spend a third of your life in bed then by age 75 you’ve slept for 25 years. You know that comes out to almost a million dreams. So the question isn’t “Why am I not dreaming?” the question is “Why am I not remembering my dreams?” And that’s why chapter 5 is called “Dream recall” and it’s why I go into all of the vitamins and minerals. And I interviewed or sighted studies from real experts that can give us insight into how we can remember our dreams; there’s a way to do it. (Laughing)
Sid: Now let me ask you a personal question.
Laura: Okay.
Sid: When I have dreams I do remember them the minute I have them but if I don’t write it down I’m going to forget it, and if I write it down it’s too much energy and I I’m afraid I won’t be able to go back to sleep. Do you have any help for me?
Laura: Ah that’s good. Yes, actually I quote Sigmund Fraud in the book which could be controversial. You know he was Jewish by birth and atheist by choice; I can’t imagine having those roots and coming to that decision point in my life. But we did agree on one thing and that is “If you do not journal or somehow process the dream immediately after you receive it it will eventually be added to, embellished, and changed entirely. James Gall who wrote the forward for my book has this expression “Stewarding revelation.” I swipe that all the time and say “You must steward revelation well; if you do not you’re likely to lose it. I would suggest for you to keep a little voice recorder by the bed or maybe there’s one on your phone and I also have found that if I just keep a pen and pad by the bed if I just lean over in the dark and I just scribble 4 or 5 of the symbols the dream comes back to me the next morning.
Sid: That sounds good because then I’ll remember the dream but I don’t remember the intricate details that I would have if I had written it down.
Laura: Sounds like you have what a lot of people want really detailed dreams. (Laughing)
Sid: I do (Laughing). Okay, so tell me… that’s a pretty interesting thing I’ve been reading statistics about how many people are having insomnia, either not being able to fall asleep, or wake up frequently during the night. Also people that say “I don’t dream.” Have people followed the vitamins and the regimen you suggest and have been able to sleep better and remember their dreams?
Laura: Yes, I’m so happy to say yes. And the examples that I site in the book are not from just silly college USA. They are studies from places like John Hopkins University, and Mayo Clinic. And I really wanted to in addition to that though have some personal examples. So I used myself as a guinea pig and found the research to be true. And yes, I am finally starting to hear testimonies even reading some of the reviews on line of people who’ve tried specific regimens and are remember their dreams. And so I’m wiping my brow and saying “Thank you Lord it truly is… it’s a fact if we take care our bodies, if we use the things that God created on day 3 of creation because I also go into the essential oils and herbal teas you can take and that type of thing then we’ll be our healthiest and we’ll sleep our best.
Sid: I have to believe that you’re conclusion is correct because that’s my conclusion from the Bible and that is God’s great desire is to communicate with us. What would you say is the major reason that people have discounted their dreams and say “I never hear from God?”
Laura: (Laughing) Well, you know Job 33 starting in verse 14 says “God may speak in one way or in another yet man does not perceive it in a dream, in a vision of the night when deep sleep falls upon men; when slumbering on their beds then He opens the ears of men and seals their instruction.” But those words right there in the middle; “Man does not perceive it.” Those are the saddest verses, amongst the saddest in the entire Bible to me to think that God is trying to talk to you. Or back up a minute; you’re begging God to talk to you… He talks to you and then you can’t take yes for an answer. (Laughing) It’s like He’s trying to communicate to you and I want to add emphatically right here that dreams and visions are not a gift of the Spirit; they’re not a badge of maturity or arrival they’re mere communication with God. And communication with God is the birth-rite of every believer.
Sid: Well, I have to believe where we are in history because I had a dream in which I was told 3 times “Jesus is returning soon.” So if there’s ever been a time to hear God it has to be now.
Laura: Hmm, hmm absolutely and you know our ears get clogged for so many different reasons and I do go into those in the book. I actually start out I think it’s chapter 8 by saying “I’d be a bad friend if I spent…” I say something like “We spend about 40,000 words thus far discussing your eyes and that’s about 20,000 per eye and I’d be a bad friend though if I didn’t discuss your hearing, your spiritual hearing and why you’re not hearing God.” So it is definitely a relevant topic; I told you in the very beginning story that when I needed to hear God I got away and solved that question in my mind about how He’s never silent. Then He began giving me dreams and visions but look at what else happened to me and it’s common to many people because we just read it in Job 33. He says “He speaks in through those visions” and then it says “Then He opens the ears of men.” So see sometimes and this is what happened to me I started having all of the dreams and visions and then my daytime ears got opened too. So He speaks through dreams and visions if we’ll perceive that it not only helps us to receive communication from him when we’re sleeping, but then as we’re awake our ears have become opened too. It’s just win, win I…
Sid: But you know what I believe, I believe that you have…when someone has a victory in some area in the spirit then they can pray for other people. And you have prayed so many impartations over the 3 CD set we call “Twenty, Twenty Hearing” and then your book “Seeing the Voice of God.” And the DVD “Ten of the Most Frequently Asked Questions on Dreams and Visions.” And as far as I’m concerned when someone finishes this entire series and starts asking God for dreams and starts following. I mean you even have a dream dictionary of 1000 symbols. Oh, we’re out of time…
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth