Joseph received his dreams at 17 years of age. These dreams came from God. Some dreams do perhaps more than we realise. Between the dream and its fulfilment is the slow and costly work of becoming the person the dream requires.
“Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. 2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornaterobe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. 5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 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.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said. 9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 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?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.” (Genesis 37 v 1-11)
So we begin a new story. Focused on a 17-year-old son of Jacob (Israel), who loved him more than his other children, Joseph is given an ornate robe to wear; the favouritism was for all to see.
This favouritism led to Joseph becoming the hated one.
Joseph has 2 dreams about what God was going to do in his life – promotion over his family. But these dreams would require him to pay the price of seeing them worked out. He could never have imagined what these dreams would ask of him.
Perhaps you know that tension. You know what God has said to you. You know His hand is on your life. You may not be seventeen, and you may not have a flashy coat, but you know God has called you, and He may be using you already. You carry a dream in your heart. What we see from the opening of this story is that when God gives us something to carry, it may not be a smooth path. This dream has come to a son of a dysfunctional household: a father who shows favouritism, his brothers who hate him and the impetuousness of youth. This is the context in which the God-dream was planted, and it wasn’t ideal; it didn’t look like God-soil. There seemed to be a definite lack of wisdom. Joseph seems to have said the right thing at the wrong time.
I think this sums it up. The beautiful coat was given to him to wear. The character wearing it would have to mature.
The dreams God gives us are not too big for us, but perhaps at the time they are given, we are too small to carry them. So we need God to prepare us, develop our character, perhaps we need to go through trials to shape us, in order to see the dreams come into fulfilment. Preparation is everything.
Missions Paul 