my idea or GOD’s will?…

another test that joseph faced after sharing his dream was the test of doubt.  it’s not just saying that it’s not true but saying, “i don’t know if GOD really wants this.”  

you can see in the reactions of the brothers and of the father and the family all the different expressions that doubt can take.  hatred to questions to rebuke.  you’re going to face doubt whenever you have a GOD given dream.

the next test is the worst of all.  it’s most unexpected if you’ve never heard anyone tell you this.  if you have a GOD given dream, it’s really from GOD, most likely it’s going to face the test of destruction.  it’s going to look like that dream gets totally wiped out.  there’s no way that it can come true. 

it happens to joseph.  in genesis 37, beginning at verse 12 we hear the story.  joseph was still 17.  his father sends him about 30 miles north to the fields of shechem to find out how his brothers and the flocks are doing.  the last time joseph had gone out to see how his brothers were taking care of the flock he’d brought back a bad report to the father so the relationship isn’t going too well.  and after two dreams the brothers are mad at him.  they see joseph coming from a long distance.

and as they see him coming, they say, “here’s an idea.  here’s how we can take care of this problem.  let’s kill him.  if we kill him the problem will be gone.”  then someone else says, “we can’t kill him.  he’s our brother.  let’s sell him.  then we can make money out of this.  that’s a lot better way to go.”  that family had a few problems!      

and they sell their brother as a slave and they take that multicolored coat, the richly ornamented robe that was the symbol of the fact that he was loved more than any of the others and they put blood on it and take it back to the father and they say, “jacob’s dead.  he’s gone.”  

and the family starts to disintegrate.  we’re going to see what happened to this family because of their actions.  for now, we’re going to follow through on joseph and what happened to him. 

he’s sold into slavery.  remember, he’s had a dream.  he was going to rise up above his brothers, above his father and mother.  he was going to be a ruler.  a great dream!  yet the first step in the fulfillment of this dream is he becomes a slave.  could anything be further from his GOD-given dream?  destruction.         

joseph is put in a place that seemed as far away from GOD’s dream for his life as possible.  does that make sense to you?  it makes sense to GOD.  it makes sense when you understand the life of faith. 

why do dreams face tests?  to provide answers.  when dreams face tests we find out whose dream it really is.  when dreams face tests, we find out if it’s my idea or GOD’s will.

just a thought from the front porch…

strengthened and refined…

if the dream is GOD given, satan doesn’t want you to have it.  if it’s GOD given, GOD wants to test it so it can be strengthened and refined.  from both sides you’re going to get testing of the dream.  dreams will always face tests.  and joseph's faced them.

one is the test of denial.  you’ll face that.  you’ll have people who say, “that’s not GOD’s dream for your life.  where do you get that?”  the test of denial.  someone who just says, “that’s not true.” 

so why do people deny your dreams? 

for one, because they don’t have any dreams of their own.  there are some people who don’t have any dreams and people who do have dreams frighten them.  that’s why joseph’s brothers were so frightened.  they had no GOD given dreams and here’s somebody who did and they realized what that dream meant.  there are some people, when you share a GOD given dream, it scares them to death because they don’t have any dreams of their own. 

a second reason is there are some people who don’t want a GOD given dream.  it’s not that they don’t have a GOD given dream.  it’s that they don’t want a GOD given dream of their own.  the number one reason for this is disappointment. 

when you and i have been disappointed in a dream that we have and someone else comes along and shares a dream, our natural reaction to them is to put down their dream.  why?  because we’ve been hurt.  we’ve been disappointed.  it’s a natural feeling we have in our lives.  we’ve got to watch out for that. 

let’s say you are married and you really want a child but for some reason you can’t have one and you hear that someone else, their GOD given dream for a child had come into their lives, the natural reaction, honestly, is not to rejoice with them.  no. the natural reaction is, “they obviously aren’t as SPIRITual as we are, don’t pray as much as i do.  so why is GOD giving them this dream?”  this happens all the time.  so you and i need to be careful not to quench others dreams when this happens.  and we need to realize that other people who have been disappointed in life will try to quench our GOD given dream. 

that’s why denial comes in.  so often when you share a dream, instead of people being excited about it like you’d expect, they’ll try to quench it.  that’s test number one.

just a thought from the front porch…