Last updated on September 25, 2020
Question:
I normally don’t like watching the news, and there is a reason for such, wars scare me. I was visiting my grandmother, and she told me about the problems in Ukraine and such on the news. I was fine until that night. I was sleeping a lot. I fell asleep right when I got home, which isn’t normal for me. I had a nightmare. I usually don’t have a lot of them. It was about the war. I forget what I dreamed as it faded from my head, but I woke up crying. My younger sister then got my dad. I told him what happened, and went into my parents’ room. I was crying more than I normally do, and was very concerned. I was scared something would happen to us. I remember my dream. I don’t want to delete this because this means a lot to me. In my dream I vividly remember me telling my dad we had to move somewhere else and he kept refusing. I was so scared after I awoke and in my sleep. I’m still worried. I don’t want this to happen anymore. I don’t like wars. I don’t want my family to get harmed. I love my family.
Please tell me as fast as you can. I don’t want to be in danger. Please help. I’m scared.
Answer:
When you sleep, your brain organizes all the things you did during the day and files it for quick retrieval. The thing about our brains’ design is that it often links obscure things together. That is why you see something and suddenly say, “That reminds me!”, even though the event had nothing to do with what you remembered. While that organization is going on, you see the connections being made while you sleep.
Your grandmother talked of wars, you have a strong fear of wars, and so naturally you had dreams about war and what you feared most about wars. Because it was a deep-seated fear, the dream disturbed you greatly. But just because you dreamed it, it doesn’t make it true. God doesn’t communicate with people in dreams as He did in the past (Hebrews 1:1-2).
Just because war breaks out in some place in the world, it doesn’t mean it will impact you or me directly. Even when a war breaks out in our own country, it doesn’t mean we will be directly impacted. What you are fearing is what you imagine might happen. But your imagination can be wilder than reality because there are no limits on your imagination. That is why Jesus said that we are not to borrow trouble from the future. “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34). Instead of worry about what might happen, we focus on dealing with what is actually happening. Reality is limited and, thus, easier to deal with.
Response:
Thanks. That calmed me down.