Through GenesisSample

DREAMS & HOPES

Even as we have been reading Genesis, we have seen God speaking to various people through dreams and visions. Some of the most talked-about visions are those of Joseph's and how they influenced his life. Some of the lessons we learn from Joseph's visions:

- When God gives us visions, we need to ponder it in our heart and not announce it like Joseph did.

- In Joseph's case, it was easy to believe the dreams as he was his dad’s blue-eyed boy. Not sure how he felt when he was sold by his brothers, was in Potiphar’s house, or, for that matter, in prison.

- We wait for the dreams to be fulfilled and not live the dreams.

- It’s God's duty to fulfill the dreams; we don’t have to fulfill it.

- Reading the story in the past, we may tend to believe that all happened according to a fatalistic plan of God. I believe it was Joseph's choice to live in the dreams and his father's favor which got him into the trouble of being sold. Yes, his father sent him to see how his brothers were, but he should have been with his brothers taking care of the herds in the first place. The important thing to realize is even my mistakes can’t stop my dreams from being fulfilled.

- Just as we saw with blessings, God-given dreams are what the sovereign God sees us doing in the future because of the choices we will be taking. Maybe if Joseph was humble and had kept the dream to himself, God would have still fulfilled it, but that is something we wouldn't know. The important thing is, He is a promise-keeping God.

Dreams can be positive, negative, a warning, or a way of showing the next step.

Even as you read the Bible, keep these thoughts of a dream and see how God showed himself as a sovereign God.