The Dream (Part 1)

            The story of Joseph is a story about hope during trials, about God's faithfulness, about purity and forgiveness.  It is also a story about dreams. 
            In Genesis 37:5-7 we read, "Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.  He said to them, 'Listen to this dream I had:  We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.'"  God gave Joseph a dream.  The dream did not make a lot of sense at the time, but it was God given and unique to Joseph. 
            God gives us dreams.  Like Joseph, I was a child full of dreams.  My dreams were not prophetic visions encrypted in symbols, but rather were in the form of lofty goals I could not erase.  When I was 8 years old, I heard some missionaries speak at my church.  They did a presentation, answered questions, and showed a few pictures.  My heart was stirred.  By the time they came to the end of their presentation, I already knew.  When they prayed about future missionaries sitting in the room, I knew it was me.  I had been called to be a missionary to orphans.  In childlike faith, I had no doubt. 
            Back to Joseph’s story.  In Genesis 37:8 to the end of the chapter, we read about Joseph sharing his dreams with his brothers and father and about the result.  Joseph's brothers get upset, they tease him, and they hate him to the point of plotting to get rid of him.  Even Joseph’s father Jacob, also called Israel, is upset by his dream.  Verses 10-11 read: "When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, 'What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?' His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind."  The dreams caused his already jealous brothers to become hateful towards him and caused his father to rebuke his favorite son.
            When God gives us dreams, He wants us to share them, even if they get rejected.  Even if we get ridiculed.   My story, thankfully, is much more peaceful than Joseph's.  At 8, I knew about my dream.  I was aware that it came from God.  I began sharing my dream to be a missionary.  I was not immediately rejected.  Instead, you could say I was encouraged.  I got a lot of "How sweet" and "What a thoughtful child."  (You know the way we grown-ups sometimes talk to kids.)  I think the world around me expected me to grow out of it. 
            By 12 I had convinced myself that I was ready. I almost a grown-up, right? I was ready to begin being useful. I compiled a binder full of adoption photo listings for my parents and others to look through, hoping that they would begin the adoption process.  I wrote letters to hospitals, asking to volunteer in their pediatric area as a baby rocker or as the candy-striper who checks in on sick kids just to make them smile. I had a lot of goals, but rejection after rejection arrived at my mailbox. "Thank you for your interest. We regret to inform you that volunteers in that department must be 18 or 21, etc." Even candy-stripers had to be 16. The words were typed politely but in my heart I heard, "You have 4 to 6 more years of being useless." So my dream lay dormant, and life went on.
            Thankfully, life went on for Joseph, too. His brothers planned to kill him. Instead, they ended up selling him to some Ishmaelites who sold him to an Egyptian named Potipher. God blessed him in Potipher's house, but unfortunately Potipher's wife started to take notice.  When Joseph’s purity and faithfulness to God protected him from her attempts at seduction, Mrs. Potipher lied to her husband and switched the story, and Joseph ended up in jail.
            But God is faithful! Joseph continues to be blessed by God, and he becomes a blessing to the jailer. Just as in Potipher's house, Joseph was raised to a position of power in the jail.