God's mysterious ways...

​           We love to say that God moves in mysterious ways and that is so true! As I think on the story of Joseph, it wasn’t just a story of a man going from the pit to the palace, as we like to put it but a story of God making a way for His people’s salvation. Imagine, God sent Joseph to enemy territory, Egypt, where he prepared him for promotion. Nothing about Joseph’s rise to promotion made sense. In fact, everything about what he went through seemed to point to failure, defeat, dashed dreams and hopes and plain hopelessness and despair. I think that sounds pretty much like many of our own stories sometimes, and we can’t seem to see an end to the drama in sight. 
         Picture it. God gives Joseph a dream and he feels happy I’m sure – like many of us would – as he anticipates a life of greatness. What he doesn’t know and can’t, is that the journey to the realization of that dream will be a difficult, painful one. Maybe, if he knew what he would have to go through, he might not have embraced his dream so wholeheartedly. Yet, his story is simply a reflection of many of our stories, in that, God gives us a dream, we feel elated that God would want to do something so wonderful in our lives, we can see it, we can feel it ... until the journey begins and all the horrors and disappointments hit us and we find ourselves losing sight of the dream. I’m sure Joseph lost sight of his dream. After all, how could his family bow down to him as he saw in his dream if he had been ripped away from them and found himself in a foreign land where they would not even be able to find him? It’s at these times that God seems to make no sense. His ways seem impossible to trace and you wonder if you had heard or seen right in the first place.
         Yet, during his journey, God was right there all along. Even when Joseph could not see it, God was there orchestrating every success, every downfall, because he was preparing him for his dream. He didn’t like the journey, he didn’t trust the process because nothing about what he was going through seemed to be leading him towards his dream. Yet, God in His sovereignty, didn’t show him the journey to the dream, just the end of the journey.
         Sometimes, I think, we have to keep our eyes on what we know God has promised us even when nothing around us seems to be leading us to where we think we should be. We have heard that we need to trust the process and that is so true. I think that God was preparing Joseph to be the kind of leader HE wanted him to be. He wasn’t interested in just making his family bow down to him, he was interested in making him a compassionate, wise, humble, excellent leader and he wants to do the same with us. Maybe He just gives us a glimpse of the ending to motivate us and to keep us focused, especially when the journey gets tough and even painful and we feel like giving up. Maybe the dream in itself isn’t the important thing but what He wants to develop in us along the way.
         Joseph’s dream finally came to pass but by that time he was humble, forgiving, wise and fully equipped to handle the task that Pharaoh had entrusted to him. Had his dream come to pass sooner, he may have been full of pride, arrogant, foolish and not ready to handle such an awesome responsibility. When you hear me say over and over again that I thank God for the negative situations in my life, it is because, in retrospect, I have seen the hand of God in those difficult times as He has used them to mould and shape me into the person He wants me to be.
          It is never a pleasant experience, but the fruit of the Spirit that is being developed in us will always be worth it in the end. In fact, I think we are able to appreciate the dream more and appreciate even more the One who gave us the dream in the first place because He is more interested in developing beauty in us so that our journey becomes a testimony that points many others to Him. The realization of the dream can be a great testimony, but at the end of the day, the journey to that dream may turn out to be a greater page-turner, an even greater testimony and motivation to someone who is going to read your story. So, trust the process, because it may turn out to be even more powerful than the dream at the end of your story.
         If you have not accepted Jesus Christ into your life as Lord and Savior please make the time to do so now. Whatever God’s plans for your life, whatever dream He has for you, the journey, the process can be even more rewarding simply because God is in it with you.  

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