Tell Me Your Dreams
Read Genesis 40:1-15.
Joseph is in jail. Prison. A dungeon. It may be a fairly comfortable place (it is a political prison, after all), but it's still jail. It's still confinement. It's still a place he (or we) wouldn't choose to be. Many people would give into despair in such a place. Many would forget how to dream.
Dreams are not just those images that flit through our heads while we sleep. We also talk about dreams in terms of hopes, aspirations, goals and ends. What are your dreams? What do you long for? Where do you see yourself in a few years? We need dreams. We need to see beyond the present circumstances. Those without dreams often find themselves "stuck," rarely achieving all that they would otherwise be capable of.
It would have been easy for Joseph to give up on dreaming. After all, slaves put into prison in that time didn't have much hope of getting out. Who on the outside would even remember him? His family was far away (and thought he was dead). Potiphar could not rescue him without risking his reputation. No one else even knew Joseph. And yet, it seems, he kept dreaming. He at least remembers his dreams from his boyhood. His time in prison sharpened his sense of God's work in his life, which filled him with hope. Joseph is more aware of God in prison than he ever has been.
So when two other prisoners begin (literally) dreaming, he can respond, "Tell me your dreams," because he hasn't forgotten how to dream. He hasn't forgotten—in fact he has remembered—the God who has been with him since his birth. Sometimes it takes a desperate time, a difficult period in our lives, for us to truly turn to God and to remember his presence. He's never left us, but sometimes we need to reawaken our hearts to his presence.
And we need to remember our dreams. They just might be from God.
Joseph is in jail. Prison. A dungeon. It may be a fairly comfortable place (it is a political prison, after all), but it's still jail. It's still confinement. It's still a place he (or we) wouldn't choose to be. Many people would give into despair in such a place. Many would forget how to dream.
Dreams are not just those images that flit through our heads while we sleep. We also talk about dreams in terms of hopes, aspirations, goals and ends. What are your dreams? What do you long for? Where do you see yourself in a few years? We need dreams. We need to see beyond the present circumstances. Those without dreams often find themselves "stuck," rarely achieving all that they would otherwise be capable of.
It would have been easy for Joseph to give up on dreaming. After all, slaves put into prison in that time didn't have much hope of getting out. Who on the outside would even remember him? His family was far away (and thought he was dead). Potiphar could not rescue him without risking his reputation. No one else even knew Joseph. And yet, it seems, he kept dreaming. He at least remembers his dreams from his boyhood. His time in prison sharpened his sense of God's work in his life, which filled him with hope. Joseph is more aware of God in prison than he ever has been.
So when two other prisoners begin (literally) dreaming, he can respond, "Tell me your dreams," because he hasn't forgotten how to dream. He hasn't forgotten—in fact he has remembered—the God who has been with him since his birth. Sometimes it takes a desperate time, a difficult period in our lives, for us to truly turn to God and to remember his presence. He's never left us, but sometimes we need to reawaken our hearts to his presence.
And we need to remember our dreams. They just might be from God.
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