We’ve all had Joseph’s dream, one way or another.
Right? That dream where all the haters bow?
Sorry for the slang. What I mean is, those other people, the ones who put you down, who didn’t believe you could, or who disliked you in one way or another–haven’t we all daydreamed at one time or another that those naysayers would bow to us in the end?
Maybe it’s only me. Sometimes, even our “godly” dreams are really just a crazy-strong underlying drive for some sort of validation. If xyz happens and our dream comes true, we’ll know deep down that we’re ok. And with pretend humility and secret inner self-satisfaction, we’ll watch those people bow, figuratively, to our success.
See!
I re-read through the story of Joseph (Gen.37) this week and saw Joseph’s dream in a whole new light. Now, before you block this blog and flag it for heresy, hear my out: I do think that Joseph’s dream was from the Lord. The dream does come true, in a strange and completely unexpected sense, but the original dream (which, interestingly, isn’t clearly given by God in the text) is really just, in essence, all the haters bowing.
Right? This is clear, verse 4: “They hated him.”
They hated him, Joseph no doubt knew it, and he conveniently dreams that they all bow down to him someday.
Hm. Suddenly Joseph’s dream doesn’t seem all that supernatural.
Again, hear my heart: I’m not saying Joseph’s dream wasn’t prophetic. It was, in a sense.
But it was also human.
All our dreams are.
All our dreams are a mess of mixed motives. Of God-dreams and self-dreams comingled. This is why, as Joseph learned the hard way, we are wise to keep them to ourselves. *smile*
Six years ago I had a dream. At the time, it seemed like a good and godly one. In some sense it was. And … it came true. But as I walked through the daily of this dream, it proved to be not as I expected.
I’m sure Joseph felt the same. As he walked the road of his dream he found himself sold as a slave, imprisoned, falsely convicted, forgotten.
But somewhere along the line, that incomplete dream gave way to something infinitely greater.
A new dream brought a new dream-come-true.
Four and a half years ago, God shattered that old, incomplete dream, the one I had, like Joseph’s, that was really nothing more than a lot of self-validation and included a few fun details like maybe a few haters bowing down.
Something like that.
He shattered that dream by shattering me. He did that to Joseph too.
And He gave me a new dream.
There’s no chapter and verse for this, but I’d dare to venture that God gave Joseph a new dream too.
No more was Joseph’s dream to simply have the haters bow. No more did he just long for validation and a sort of self-elevation that proved success.
As he suffered, served, grew, his dream shifted from seeing others bow to seeing others live.
He wound up giving his life for saving lives. His genius, his intellect, his energy, all of it became poured out to wisely stewarding Egypt’s resources to save the lives of many (Gen 45:5).
I think this became his new dream and his new dream-come-true.
The new dream that God birthed 4 1/2 years ago … just came true this week. And let me just say: It’s so much better than the first one!
What if, instead of dreaming of gaining we dream of giving?
Instead of seeing others bow, we dream to see others live.
{What are your dreams? Honestly? How are we tempted to “settle” for simple dreams like seeing ourselves validated or seeing the haters bow? How might God want to birth a new dream, and a new dream-come-true? Happy, happy weekend friends. Thank you for reading!}
*This is from almost exactly a year ago, and now it’s so fun to see God birthing new dreams, and new dreams-come-true.