It’s Just a Dream; When God Plants a Seed

“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

Genesis 45:8

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I feel spring in my bones, not just warmer air and longer days, the birds noisy in the morning. I feel restlessness stirring in my heart, I want it to hurry up already.

I run it out, begging the terrain to pound against the soles of my shoes. I am not running because it feels good. It does not. I feel the impact against my joints as I run, I will feel it later. It is the rhythm I am after, the rhythm of breathing and of the pavement hitting my feet. I engage in the familiarity of the route, the well-known landscape reminding me exactly how far I have gone, how far I have left to go.

For just a short while, I want to balance the unknown by moving into the known. For a short while, I want to be in control.

God has planted a seed in my heart, a dream, a promise, and I find myself somewhere in the messy middle. I sit in the chapter of the story where none of it looks how I would have written it, not even in a rough draft. None of it makes sense. This might be the point.

Joseph lived the same story, landing in the middle, carrying a dream in his pack.

We are introduced to Joseph in Genesis 37, young, confident and full of dreams. His dreams foreshadow his position of authority over his older brothers and also his patriarch father, Jacob. Soon after, we find him thrown into a cistern by those same brothers and then sold as a slave to an Egyptian master. There go his dreams.

Here comes the messy middle.

Joseph’s dreams go with him to Egypt. He holds onto them, growing up in a foreign land, growing into the man God needs him to be, growing into his story. God bestows favor upon Joseph, prospering him. Then unexpectedly, Joseph’s good looks and an unwillingness to compromise land him in prison, further away from the dreams God had given him as a young man. Consider the weight of his disappointment. He has lived in a manner that honors God, he has established himself as capable and trustworthy (Genesis 39:6). He has taken his position in stride, working as assigned. Perhaps he has even begun to imagine how God would raise him to a position of authority, but not yet seeing how that would connect with his family. But now, an undetermined prison sentence.

But now.

The LORD is with Joseph in prison (Genesis 39:21) showing him kindness and granting him favor. Again Joseph, despite unfavorable circumstances, finds himself in a position of authority. Perhaps his dreams reawaken in the deep of his secret places, in his hushed conversations with his Creator, in his imagination as he lays awake in the night. Perhaps he has hope.

Dreams follow Joseph. The second time in the form of those had by two others, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. Disturbed by their dreams and unable to put meaning to them, Joseph finds them dejected and asks them why they are sad. They tell him, “We both had dreams, but there is no one to interpret them.” Joseph replies, “Do not all interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams” (Genesis 40:8).

“Do not all interpretations belong to God?”

Joseph has not only grown up, he has grown to depend fully on God, acknowledging Him as the sovereign one. He knows God as the one who plants dreams.

The cupbearer and the baker leave prison after Joseph accurately interprets their dreams. Joseph requests the cupbearer to not forget him when he is reestablished in his position.

But the cupbearer forgets (Genesis 40:23).

Dreams first land Joseph in a cistern waiting to be sold as a young slave. Dreams give him hope and then disappointment with the absentminded cupbearer. But in a twist that only God could turn, dreams bring Joseph freedom from his prison pit. This third time it is the dreams of Pharaoh, and a cupbearer who finally remembers. When Joseph is asked to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams he replies, “I cannot do it, but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires” (Genesis 41:16). Sound familiar?

But God.

After accurately interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh, Joseph is put in charge of the entire land of Egypt (Genesis 41:41). Joseph’s dreams way back in Genesis 37 alluded to his God granted authority. But now, with the position of authority located in Egypt, where are his brothers, his beloved father? Where are the ones in the original dreams bowing low to him? I imagine at this time in his well-established life, this is the portion of the dream that he aches for, that runs tears down his face when he is alone with the LORD. This is the frame that leaves him wondering about God’s goodness, His purpose.

But finally.

The famine that haunts Pharaoh’s dreams comes to pass impacting not just Egypt but also the land of Canaan, the land of Joseph’s family. The famine brings his family to Egypt and the rest is the stuff that dreams are made of (Genesis 46:29). The dreams, now reality, with purpose that Joseph could not have imagined, not just for his family but for a nation. A purpose not just for his generation but for generations to come (even for you and for me).

I have shared a long beautiful story, short. If you are unfamiliar with the entire story, by all means, read it. Joseph’s story is found in Genesis 37, 39 through 48. It is a wonderful story, full of the details that God uses to pour out lessons into our lives. And strategically omitting those that inhibit us from sinking into the story ourselves, opening our imagination to what might have taken place. Opening our imagination to where we might fit.

The story of Joseph and his dreams leave us with a treasure of lessons to behold and then to hold.

• A restless heart can be a hopeful heart.
• God plants dreams and desires in our hearts, and then He often leads us straight into the messy middle.
• God uses the messy middle to grow us, to mold us, to prepare us, to make us solely dependent upon Him.
• We are called to be faithful, even when the chapter does not make sense.
• God changes our perspective to align with His purpose.
• God’s purpose in planting dreams exceeds our imaginations and our generation.
• God does not forget what He has planted and neither should we.
• What God plants will grow.

My most favorite part of the story is when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers (Genesis 45:3-8). These verses reveal to the reader that Joseph finally sees. He sees what God did. He sees past the memory of the messy middle, and he is blown away with the goodness and sovereignty of God.

The run is about knowing the route. I can persevere when I know the way. I can count breaths, steps, hills, turns, miles. God calls me to run the race without knowing the route. He calls me to endure when I can’t count days, and when it hurts. God calls me to straight into the messy middle.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

Hebrews 12:1