Shattered Dreams (and the good news behind them)

You know, I was asked an interesting question the other day.

As we're going through the story of Joseph, we're talking about God's amazing dreams for us and how He is going to accomplish His dream in us. Even though we face difficulty and isolation at times as we move forward in His dream for us, we will look back on those experiences and marvel at how God worked through those difficult times. My encouragement on Sunday was to keep moving forward in the dream that God gave you.

...And here's the question I was asked: "What if I don't know the dream that God has for me?" The question sort of caught me off-guard. Everyone has a pretty solid idea of the destiny God has for them, don't they? Nope.

To be honest, I didn't know how to respond. Until I looked closer at Joseph's life. When I reread the story of Joseph in preparation for this week's sermon, I had that question in my mind and a simple fact dawned on me: Joseph didn't know his destiny. He had a dream, the one thing he knew was that his brothers and his parents would one day fall under his authority. The only image he had in his mind was that of his brothers bowing to him (Gen 37:1-12). The substance of the dream that God had for Joseph was, ironically, not the fact that Joseph's brothers would bow to him, but rather that Joseph would save millions of people from starvation (Gen 41:25-36)! We can move forward in God's dream/vision/destiny for our lives even without knowing how to articulate that dream.

This week, as we look closely at Genesis 39 and 40, we basically have two narrative stories that are tied together by a basic thread: Joseph gets jacked in both stories! We’ve all been jacked by people on the way through life. In the first story, Joseph is shown as a man of impeccable character and deserving of better treatment and, while keeping his head about him and remaining true to himself, he gets thrown in prison! In the second story, Joseph is given a way out of his situation, so he asks for favor from the guy and the other guy completely drops the ball on Joseph. Joseph has nothing to regret in either situation: he has done everything right. And yet everything goes wrong.

It sounds so depressing, but it’s absolutely not. What I read in these stories is this simple truth: God is not waiting for us to get everything right (and he doesn’t need other people either) in order for him to do mighty things through us. He's not even waiting for us to know His calling on our lives. That is unbelievably good news! Because it is entirely based on His sovereignty and His grace; not on our performance nor our karma.

I, for one, am thankful that God isn't waiting for me to be able to clearly articulate my life purpose in a nice, pithy statement. I am thankful that God isn't waiting for me to get my life in order or for me (or others) to live up to promises that have been made. I am thankful that He can do absolutely incredible things even in spite of me.