When God Gives You A Dream

As a kid, I had big dreams (hey, there wasn't much to do growing up in Marks, Mississippi unless you wanted to farm 24 hours a day!). I had felt called into the ministry at a young age and loved meteorology, but I didn't know how those two would work together. So when people would ask me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?", I would always tell them, "I want to be on tv giving the weather!" They would usually laugh while they looked at me because I wasn't much to look at. The simple thought that someone from a small town would actually be on television one day doing the weather was so laughable; plus, there were no females doing the weather on the television stations we watched. Even though some thought it was quite comical, I still talked about my dreams.

As a young boy, Joseph had a dream in which he saw himself being honored by all the members of his family. The mistake he made was telling his dream because it was one of the things that made his brothers so hateful and envious. They tried to get rid of him by selling him into slavery. Joseph was a bit overly exuberant. That's why God spent several years doing a work in him before He could use him to fulfill His plan to bless him and his family and many, many others. Acts 7:9 says, "And Jacob's sons, boiling with envy and hatred and anger, sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt; but God was with him."

We make that same mistake. When God reveals His dream and vision for our life, we share it with others who aren't as thrilled about it as we are and may even cause us problems, just as Joseph's brothers did for him.

If you and I are going to enjoy God's fullness for our lives, we must go through times when we have to stand alone. Sometimes we must be left with nobody so we will learn to depend solely upon the Lord. Then we will be forced to place our entire faith and trust in God. He wants us to be rooted and grounded in Him, able to stand alone, with Him upholding us.

I don't believe God wants us to be a clone of someone else. He wants us to be unique and creative, hence the reason why He gives us dreams and visions for our future. He is looking for something new and fresh in us. He wants us to operate by His Spirit.

There were many times when Joseph had to fly alone. He faced hard, lonely times in his life, especially the time he spent in jail in a foreign land. Yet through all of his adversity, notice what the scriptures say about Joseph's situation: "but God was with him". And in the end, Joseph's dreams were fulfilled.