Let God Put a Dream in Your Heart

From Pit to Pinnacle

The story of the dreamer Joseph has been retold many times (you can review it by reading Genesis 37-43). The direction for Joseph’s entire life was determined by God-inspired dreams. He went “from pit to pinnacle,” daring to trust that God was in charge of every dream-determined decision.

Those first two dreams were God’s way of showing him that someday he would be honored as if he were a patriarch or a pharaoh. His brothers’ simmering resentment soon tried to put the lie to such pretentious-sounding predictions when they ganged up on Joseph far from home and threw him into a deep pit. Preparing a lie to tell their father about what had happened, they sold their brother as a slave to a passing caravan of merchants, who took Joseph even farther from home to Egypt, selling him into service in Potiphar’s household.

Joseph proved to be such a capable and trustworthy servant that Potiphar promoted him to become his personal assistant. He was also too good-looking for Potiphar’s wife to resist, and when the righteous young Hebrew spurned her seductive advances, she had him thrown into the dungeon with no promise of parole.

While confined in the Egyptian prison, Joseph put his dream-interpretation skills to good use, making something of a reputation for himself. In due time, the pharaoh himself had a portentous dream for which he urgently needed an interpreter, and Joseph was summoned. His explicit and accurate interpretation won him not only his freedom from prison, but a new, high-level assignment in the royal household. As second in command, he now managed the resources of the nation of Egypt, preparing for the famine that had been predicted by the pharaoh’s dream. As the crops began to fail in the seventh year and famine ensued, Joseph was ready; Egypt would be saved.

It had been at least 15 years since Joseph’s brothers threw him into the pit near Shechem. Once the famine spread as far as Canaan where they still lived with their father, the brothers were forced to travel to prosperous Egypt, where they had heard they could obtain food. To whom must they apply for relief? Unbeknownst to them, the Egyptian official to whom they were bowing (like sheaves of grain!) was none other than their maligned brother, Joseph. Joseph knew who they were. Was he vengeful as he looked down at the tops of their bowed heads?

No, he saw his dream being fulfilled. Fifteen long and eventful years had passed, but Joseph had not let his dream die. He couldn’t. His dream had taken hold of him. Now he could see what God had intended all along. Through everything that had happened, God was going to use him to continue the legacy of his family line until more dreams could be fulfilled. Joseph said to his brothers: “As for you, you meant to harm me, but God intended it for a good purpose, so he could preserve the lives of many people, as you can see this day” (Gen. 50:20).