S82P4 – The beauty of the call: Joseph
Gen. 37:5-7
Now Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more. He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have dreamed; we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf got up and stood upright and remained standing; and behold, your sheaves stood all around my sheaf and bowed down.”
One evening, God gave me a dream that I had gone back to school to become a social worker. I laughed off that dream because, at the time, I simply did not have the right love for people to hold a position like that. A few nights later I had another dream that I returned to graduate school for much more prestigious work. I ended up following that second dream, and God’s hand was in that, but I realize now the lack of fulfillment in that work. I see myself now desiring to care for people much more in the way God directed that first dream. Not knowing whether that dream was literal or figurative, I simply dismissed it as not what I desired. Looking back, perhaps it would have been better to explore that calling first.
I have to laugh every time God speaks to me in my dreams. What makes me laugh is the fact that He knows that is the only time I am actually quiet and still. When God speaks to me in my dreams it is because He really wants to get my attention. My mind is totally vulnerable, and He has all influence. I see today how dreams which I previously discounted actually held some true merit and value. Those things God tried to show me He has simply revisited until I have woken up and seen the big picture. What I have learned from my experience is that any dream which moves my spirit, any dream which seems like it could mean something, deserves prayerful attention because God knows where He is leading me even if the picture is not clear to me at all.
Sleep is certainly a valuable time of rest for us, but other than that it is not productive at all. It is amazing that God can use even that time to speak spiritual truth to us and show us a little more of the plan and purpose He has for us. If I want God to send me a clear and loud message, I usually pray for him to bring me a dream because that is when I know I will hear him. The issue is whether I have the discernment to understand when a dream is just the result of late night pizza and when it is the result of divine intervention. Father, we ask that You speak to us in dreams, give us nighttime visions of what You have in store, and give us the discernment and wisdom to seek out your meaning behind our dreams.