1g. Joseph and Dreams: Learning to Trust the Journey
We take so many wrong turns, but are they in the end wrong?
Among all the stories in the Bible, few seem to contain as many twists and turns as the life of Joseph. His story begins with dreams and ends with reconciliation, but between those two points lies betrayal, injustice, loneliness, and years of waiting. At times, it must have seemed that his dreams had failed and that God had abandoned him.
Yet perhaps Joseph’s story is not merely about one man who lived thousands of years ago. Perhaps it is about all of us.
Joseph begins life with dreams. Like many young people, he is filled with hope and expectation. He believes that life will unfold according to those dreams. But instead of immediate fulfillment, he encounters rejection. His own brothers turn against him. They throw him into a pit and eventually sell him into slavery.
Perhaps we all experience pits.
There are moments in life when we feel betrayed by others, misunderstood, or forgotten. We may even wonder why God seems silent. The plans we once held so dearly appear to fall apart, and the future we imagined seems to disappear.
Yet the remarkable thing about Joseph is that he continues to move forward. He does not understand what is happening, but he does not give up. Even in slavery, he remains faithful. Even when falsely accused and thrown into prison, he continues to trust.
How many of us have found ourselves in prisons we never expected? Not prisons of stone and iron, but prisons of disappointment, grief, fear, illness, or uncertainty. There are seasons when we feel confined by circumstances beyond our control, unable to see any purpose in what we are experiencing.
Perhaps the prison represents those times when life slows us down and strips away our illusions. We may feel forgotten, but often the deepest work of transformation takes place in those hidden places where no one else can see.
It is interesting that throughout Joseph’s journey, dreams never disappear. In fact, dreams become one of the ways through which God speaks. Joseph interprets dreams for others long before he understands his own.
Perhaps that is true for us as well. Sometimes we are able to bring hope and encouragement to others even while we are still waiting for clarity in our own lives.
Years pass before Joseph finally rises to a position of influence. Looking back, what once appeared to be a series of tragedies becomes part of a larger story. The pit led to the prison. The prison led to the palace. What seemed like detours turned out to be preparation.
Perhaps life is often like that.
Many of us spend years wondering why certain things happened, only to discover later that the very experiences we wished to avoid became the experiences that shaped us most deeply. The disappointments we resisted often became the pathways through which wisdom, compassion, and understanding entered our lives.
There are so many individuals that I know that have had traumatic childhoods. Childhoods of many types of abuses. Why would anyone think that this could be something that could positively shape us? What if instead it was a test to see if we could forgive rather than be beaten down by it? Maybe those experiences show us what love truly is by living through what it was not?
i have had many dreams that I remembered enough to write them down. Most of them contained a struggle in some way. Maybe a dream about farming days that I struggled to get the crops in, or a struggle in some other manner. I had few dreams where everything was wonderful. I guess deep down I must have had an insecurity of some sort, but maybe struggles in dreams are there to maybe prepare us for struggles in real life.
When Joseph is finally reunited with his brothers, he utters one of the most remarkable statements in Scripture. Speaking to the very men who had betrayed him, he says, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.”
What extraordinary words.
Joseph does not deny the wrong that was done to him. He does not pretend that suffering is pleasant. Yet he sees something larger at work. He recognizes that even painful chapters can become part of a greater story.
Perhaps that is one of the deepest lessons hidden within Joseph’s life. We rarely understand the meaning of our journey while we are in the midst of it. It is usually only in looking backward that we begin to see how the pieces fit together.
Maybe the dreams placed within us are larger than we imagine. Maybe their fulfillment takes forms we never expected. And perhaps what feels like a delay is not necessarily a denial.
Perhaps the soul also has seasons.
There are times for dreaming.
Times for waiting.
Times for suffering.
Times for growth.
And eventually, times for understanding.
Perhaps the greatest lesson Joseph teaches us is that God is present not only in the palace, but also in the pit and the prison. And perhaps nothing that happens to us is ever wasted.
What if every twist and turn in our lives is somehow contributing to a story whose meaning we cannot yet fully see?
Perhaps faith is learning to trust the journey, even when we do not understand the map.
Coming Next
Egypt and Pharaoh: Escaping the False King
What if Egypt represents more than a place on a map, and Pharaoh more than a ruler from long ago? What if they symbolize the inner bondage from which every soul must eventually seek freedom?