Keeping Your Focus When Your Dreams Are Shattered

This Sunday (7/9/08), I will resume leading a class in my church on "Precept-Upon-Precept" where we will learn about my favourite character in the Bible i.e. Joseph the Dreamer. The story of Joseph appeals so much to me because in many ways, I too am a "dreamer" as are many of us out there. Even Martin Luther King has a dream for America which started the "equal rights" movement where all U.S. citizens irrespective of colour or creed are to be accorded equal rights.

Like Joseph, God has spoken to me via dreams quite a few times before. I dreamt who my future wife will be and God even showed me in a dream how my father-in-law would die (he slipped and fell in hospital) and in his last moments, we managed to share the Gospel with him and he went into eternity accepting Jesus as his Saviour. You see, God gives us dreams for a purpose and it can range from confirmation of some future event, a warning, an instruction we are to follow, etc.

Some of us have dreams that could have been shattered and we ask God : "Why Lord ? Why is the realisation of this dream not forthcoming ? How long more ? " This must have been the cry of Joseph when from being the favourite child, he was sold as a slave to Egypt. He was then bought by an Egyptian officer named Potiphar and was made overseer over his household. He was then accused wrongly and thrown in jail but even there was made to be in charge of the prisoners. He was left there for 2 years but was made Prime Minister when he was able to interpret Pharoah's dreams.

In many ways we too can prayerfully consider how we can relate the events of Joseph's life to our own. In Romans 15 : 4 we read that : "whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope." Despite the seemingly non-fulfillment of Joseph's dreams, he never lose focus but continued to trust in the God Who has seen him through so many circumstances. May we learn from Joseph to keep our focus on God when our dreams seem to have been shattered. Hang in there, He will carry you !