Time for Dreams to Come True

 I don’t know how God speaks to you, but with me, he usually drops little hints and reminders for me in various places, and from several different people, each adding a little more to what he is teaching me.

This time, it started with a verse in Psalm 105:19 that jumped off the page during my morning time with Jesus in his word.

“God’s promise to Joseph purged his character until it was time for his dreams to come true.” Ps. 105:19

Joseph was a dreamer, for sure, from the time he was a young boy.  And it’s true, his dreams didn’t come true for a long, long time.  So how did God’s promise to Joseph purge his character until it was time for his dreams to come true?

How does that work, that purging process?  Sanctification.

First, Joseph had to believe the promise, even though he couldn’t see it.  It must have helped that his family all understood the meaning of his dreams, the sun, moon and stars all bowing down to him, and got down on him for thinking that his family would one day bow to him.  They understood, but they didn’t believe it, and his brothers got pretty angry about the thought of bowing down to their annoying kid brother.  But Joseph chose to believe God in spite of his circumstances.  He held on to hope, and the Scriptures say that the promise purged his character.

Purge:  to get rid of something or someone, often suddenly.  To get rid of impurity, to cleanse, to purify.

In order for his dreams to come true, Joseph had to remain alive.  I wonder if that thought occurred to him as he lay in the deep hole his brothers had thrown him into.  Or while he was led away to Egypt in slavery.  Or when the wife of his master entrapped him and had him sent to prison.  What kept him going?  His life was truly purged of anything and everything.  All his rights had been stripped away when he became a slave.  He owned nothing.  In the darkness and solitude of prison that truth must have been palpable.  He had nothing, nothing but hope in the promises of God.  And because he still trusted  God, he served his prison master well and came to a position of service in the prison.  Then he used his favor with God to interpret dreams for 2 fellow prisoners, asking them to remember to tell Pharaoh about him, that he was unjustly accused and in prison.

Finally Joseph was remembered and given the chance to interpret a dream for Pharaoh himself.  He gave the credit to God for his ability to interpret dreams.  Pharaoh was so grateful and so impressed with Joseph’s intelligence and creative strategies that he hired Joseph on the spot to be second in command in the land of Egypt, to manage the nation during the 7 years of prosperity and the 7 years of famine.

When Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt to buy food from the ruler of Egypt, they bowed low in honor to their brother, Joseph, whose dreams were coming true at last.  The years of waiting and suffering, purging had done their work on Joseph’s character such that Joseph was filled with love for his brothers who had caused him so much suffering.  Joseph could say to them, “You meant what you did to hurt me, but God turned it around for my good, and for the good of our nation, to preserve the lives of my family, and my people during the famine.”

I heard one of the pastors at church speaking at a recent service, reminding us that we need to stop thinking only about today, here and now, and consciously sow into the next generation.  Again I thought of Joseph.  On his death bed Joseph instilled hope in his family by asking of them one special request.  “When God brings his people out of Egypt and into their own land, you must carry my bones and bury them in that land.”  It wasn’t just a dying wish, it was also a seed of hope, a dream, planted in Joseph’s family.   It wasn’t “if you ever get out of Egypt”, no it was “when God brings you out of Egypt into your own land.”

Joseph’s family took his dying request very seriously.  Over the hundreds of years the Israelites were stuck in Egypt, made slaves to serve Pharaoh and the Egyptian people, they never forgot about those bones.  I wonder if they were ever tempted to just bury Joseph’s bones there, get that coffin out of their home?  When the kids would ask, “Why are we keeping that old coffin here and not burying it?” they would hear the story again.  One day, God will deliver us from slavery.  And history shows us that the promise was fulfilled, and their dreams did come true.

Joseph instilled another promise into the hearts of the next generation.  If God’s promise to Joseph purged his character until it was time for his dreams to come true, wouldn’t God repeat the testimony now thousands of years later, for my generation, and my children and grandchildren.