"I Dreamed This"

See, what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?
-Mel Gibson as Graham Hess in the movie Signs




I watched the movie Signs (2002) yesterday morning and it got me thinking since it talks about, among other things, predestination, signs, miracles, and dreams. If you have not seen the movie and plan to, stop reading-there be spoilers ahead.

I'm definitely a person who believes there are no coincidences in life and who sees signs but I don't believe in predestination in the religious sense; the belief that God guides the lives of everyone who is destined to be saved. At one point in the movie something happens that makes the lead character, Graham Hess, a lapsed Episcopal priest, believe that his son has been born with asthma so he would be protected when exposed to poison later in life.

Is his son's asthma a gift from God which will save him later because that's what God wants to happen? No, the idea that our lives are directed by a God who is a puppet master pulling the strings of only some of his puppets is an idea that springs from man's egotistical need to be seen as unique and worthy of special treatment. I believe that our lives are directed by the choices we make and that sometimes God steps in to protect us from some of the more foolish ones and that this "stepping in" is what we call a miracle.

So, the miracle is not the boy having asthma, the miracle is he doesn't have his inhaler when he needs it. This is a child who earlier in the film is shown pulling his inhaler out of his pocket and using it which means he is conscientious about keeping it with him. In the basement he doesn't have it. How can that be? It must be God protecting him from a foolish decision.

Are prophetic dreams a sign that God is directing our lives? There is one scene in the movie which I really identified with and that is when the little girl, while watching something play-out in front of her eyes, says, "I dreamed this."
Been there, done that, and had that look on my face. I've dreamed about conversations, houses my family ended up living in and when I got older, jobs I ended up doing. Evidence of Predestination because I am one of the chosen ones who will be saved? No, just glimpses of where my or other people's (my parents) choices were leading me.

God may not direct our lives but I am positive that God sometimes gives us a helping hand.

(For a scientific explanation of Predetermination you might want to read,Signs (2002) and the Predetermination of Destiny, which brings up Freud's theory of psychic determinism.)