Joseph

When Dreams Die Young

We never thought our dreams would come through our wounds. Those dreams lay shining before us, immediately within our grasp, or so we thought. Maybe Joseph felt the same.

His own brothers sold him into captivity. The traders who bought him carried with them balm and myrrh from Gilead to be sold in Egypt, entirely unaware that those healing spices were now joined by a man who would bring healing to his generation during a time of severe famine. And this man’s journey would foreshadow a greater, eternal savior who would bring healing and salvation to all.

Do we realize that sometimes we, too, must be broken to bring healing?

Joseph likely didn’t realize this when he first received his dream—that he would have to be broken.

Broken by the hatred of his brothers.

Broken by separation from his family.

Broken in slavery.

Broken as a man falsely accused.

Broken through years in prison, though innocent.

Broken year after year as he waited until his dream was almost forgotten.

Yet God makes everything beautiful in its time. And so he did with Joseph, raising him up from the heap of ashes to a prominent place. Positioning him to save a people from certain death.

And through the lineage of those saved would come a greater savior who would suffer death on a cross to save us from sin and to defeat death through his resurrection.

“By his wounds we are healed,” we cry. And this is truth. God can heal everything from broken hearts to broken bodies. And yet, sometimes His healing comes in a different way. And dreams can only be resurrected after they’ve first been buried.

“Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains but a single seed.”

There’s a deeper faith that understands we are also called to be like Jesus. And because He was wounded we, too, may be wounded for a season. Is a student above his teacher? If Jesus suffered, so we may be called to the same.

Of course, our brokenness would never come to the point of bringing salvation, as He did and alone can do. But maybe our brokenness comes to a degree that we might share in pouring his healing balm on those in need.

And as we bleed through our wounds an element of His healing is brought to our own generation. A deeper healing.

Who knows how our own wounds may be used to bring healing to others?

God works miracles in unexpected ways. He is all-powerful and can certainly bring immediate healing, as he often does. Yet his greater miracles come when he brings light from darkness, good from evil, and healing from our wounds. Only God can bring glory from ashes.

Photo Credit: by Lichtmagnet from Pixabay

Greater Outcomes

Blog_CaveWaterfallWhen Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brothers, it must have seemed impossible to believe any good could come from it. When he was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, the thought of God redeeming his circumstances surely seemed a distant dream. And when his only two friends forgot him in that jail cell, Joseph could easily have given up all hope.

But at some point in his endlessly nightmarish story, Joseph learned something that sustained him to the turning-point.

God is a God of greater outcomes.

Joseph emerged from nearly fourteen years of bondage with a faith stronger and more certain than he started out with. Beyond his confinement, he found not only the fulfillment of his dreams but the enduring faithfulness of God to redeem any circumstance for measureless good.

When his guilty brothers came to him in time of famine, Joseph could easily have poured out the full measure of vengeance. Instead, he spoke these words: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people” (Genesis 50:20).

This hour in which we live is one of inexplicable darkness. We live in a world where the ravages of sin plague every corner of existence. Violence, sickness and calamity strive to rule our days. And in the thick of the chaos, we cry out for some glimpse of good, some sign of God’s intervention.

How could a greater outcome emerge from this current pandemic?

This is the realm in which only the God of the impossible can work his greatest wonders.

In Joseph’s situation, human free-will and the brokenness of nature were allowed to run their course to a near-dismal end. A brother in slavery. A family in crisis. A world in famine. Nothing can shroud the suffering Joseph went through, but nothing can veil the glorious outcome.

And so it is today. Nothing can shroud the lives lost in this horrific time. But that doesn’t negate the truth that good can and will inevitably emerge, in its time.

I recently read that every year, over 4.5 million people die from complications resulting directly from air pollution. Some have estimated that with major cities on quarantine, the decrease in air pollution could save possibly hundreds of thousands more lives than have been lost through the current pandemic.

And what IF. What if someone or multiple someones had been plotting mass shootings or other acts of terrorism in the near future, which are now thwarted with no large crowds to target? We may never know.

And these are only possible physical outcomes. What about families once broken, now drawing together and irreversibly strengthened through hours alone, together? And workaholics on the brink of heart-attack or worse, now forced to slow down and breathe?

But I would say that God is into even greater outcomes than these. Because this imperfect world is not our home, and maybe we’re finally coming to realize that. Maybe this shaking is truly an awakening that will at last open blind eyes to see the things of earth are not our end goal. Salvation and eternal life are found in one who suffered far greater injustices than Joseph, with far greater outcomes.

Maybe multitudes of treasured souls will find enduring hope and everlasting life, which far outweighs anything this world can bring.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 2:7-9)

 

Photo Credit: Waterfall from a Cave @ goodfreephotos.com