Encouraging Words: Dreaming

Dreams


In the book of Genesis, there is the story of Abraham, the Patriarch of the Jewish nation. He had a son named Isaac and Isaac had a son named Jacob and Jacob had a son named Joseph. Joseph was called a dreamer.

Why is Joseph called a dreamer? Is it because he dreamed? But, everybody has dreams. The little child who is five, six, seven, eight, nine years old dreams. Little girls dream of being the princess or the movie star. Now they dream of being doctors, lawyers and corporate executives. Little boys dream of being a cowboy or a spaceman. They dream of getting in a space ship and going off to fight galactic enemies in outer space. Teenagers dream of being smooth with the girls or boys. They dream of winning the ballgame, being the hero that classmates look up to.

But dreams don’t stop there. When men and women are dating and getting serious, the guy tells his fiance how he will provide for her the best of everything and she tells him she will always take care of him. And what man has not dreamed of becoming the best in his career and business. What woman has not dreamed of having a model home and children. Dreams did not end with Joseph and they do not end with adulthood.

We all dream. You dream. You go to conferences and see people who teach and lead workshops. You think, what would it be like if I could do that? What would my life be like if I could stand before great crowds of people and speak, teach or sing? You dream like that all the time.

You see, we all dream We dream of being able to do whatever it is we want to do. Being able to do our favorite activities. But then we say, “Oh, I could never do that, that's not me. But look at this guy up there teaching, man he's great, he's a natural speaker, he's a natural teacher. Look at this guy singing. Wow! He has natural talent.” What we don't realize is that he's not a natural talent. He was lousy at first. He struggled to do well and he worried about people laughing at him, thinking he was silly and awkward. But he kept going until he got better.

You see the dreamer, Joseph, was the dreamer because he believed his dreams. He said, “I had a dream that we were out in the field gathering grain and everybody else's grain bowed down to mine. And I dreamed that even the sun and moon and all the stars bowed down to me.” Joseph didn't just dream those things he believed them. He believed they were from God. He believed they had meaning and they would happen. That's why Joseph was called a dreamer.

Why are we not dreamers? Because we dream and we say, “It would be so wonderful if I could do that, but that's silly, I can't do it. I don't have the talent, I can't teach, I can't speak, I can't sing. That's silly of me.”

Is it?