DAILY DOSE OF HOPE – BLOG – NAIMA LETT
Dreams that Keep On Dreaming
© NaimaLett.com/blog
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I’m so encouraged on this beautiful Friday! I’ve already started praying for your God-given dreams that you’ve sent or are physically bringing on Sunday for our BRING YOUR DREAMS service. Our leadership team is praying too.
And I woke up with this thought that I couldn’t wait to share with you:
Our God-given dreams have no expiration date. That’s right!
EXPIRATION DATE: NEVER!
Before you object and tell me all the things you haven’t accomplished, hear me out.
The book of Genesis ends with the death of Joseph, but not with the death of his dreams.
At the age of 17, God gives Joseph a dream that he will be a ruler and his family will bow before him. The next 13 years produce mad tribulation. Joseph is sold into slavery, falsely accused, thrown in prison, abandoned and forgotten. Then, at the age of 30, he’s remembered, interprets Pharaoh’s dreams and is assigned as Pharaoh’s second-in-command who prepares and leads the nation through the greatest famine of the land.
20 years after Joseph first has his dream of being a ruler, some time during the great famine, between Joseph’s age of 37-39, his brothers travel to Egypt to buy food. Genesis 42:6-9 says “Now Joseph was the ruler over the land; he was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed down to him with their faces to the ground… Joseph remembered the dreams which he had about them, and said…”
SOUNDS LIKE EXPIRATION?
We might be tempted to look at Joseph’s story at this point and think that his dream expires when his brothers bow before him. But that’s not true. What Joseph sees in his initial vision comes to pass, but Joseph’s reign as a ruler has just begun. Joseph lives to be 110 years old, that’s 70 more years of fruitfulness that his initial dream produces.
If we look at Joseph’s own words, we discover that the dreams God gives him at 17 are a part of a larger dream for God’s people. Joseph tells his brothers, “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance” Genesis 45:7. “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” Genesis 50:20. Joseph’s dream of ruling had everything to do with saving lives and particularly saving God’s people.
Finally, we see in Joseph’s last breath that he understands his dream is tied to the dreams of his forefathers. He is simply one piece of the God’s greater puzzle preserving God’s people. He says “I am about to die, but God will surely take care of you and bring you up from this land to the land which He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob.” Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here.”
Right before he dies, Joseph makes sure that his family understands the greater vision is God’s promise to His people that God has given Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Joseph’s dream helps him see ahead of time how God would use him in the greater narrative, and Joseph is faithful to his part to the end.
DREAMS THAT KEEP ON DREAMING
That’s why I say our dreams, like Joseph’s dreams, have no expiration. Because they are all tied to a greater narrative that is so much bigger than us. We can do our part. We can be faithful, like Joseph, to accomplish the dreams God gives to each one of us. And we can celebrate that our dreams live long after we have passed from this earth.
You best believe Moses and the the children of Israel carry Joseph’s bones up out of Egypt when God delivers His people, Exodus 13:19. And Joshua buries Joseph’s bones in the land God promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Joshua 24:32. Joseph is even heralded in the Hall of Faith for his faith that God would bring His people out of Egypt to the land He promised, Hebrews 11:22. Joseph has a dream that keeps on dreaming!
If your God-given dreams have little life beyond you, I challenge you to revisit what God has shown you. What you see should impact generations and fit into a tapestry that has been woven for eternity. You may not be called to rule and save an entire land as Joseph was, but your God-given dream is supposed to bless somebody’s life, in the same way that Christ has blessed ours.
I’m so excited. Can’t you tell?
What’s your dream that keeps on dreaming?
Naima
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Hi Naima,
In this season of my life, which sorta started July 2011, I have been looking to God to make my passion clear and what He would have me to focus on outside of the daily duties of caring for the kids and my husband. I’m doing some cool activities such as co-leading a Bible Study small group and learning the guitar and piano. There is always the same old of keeping the house in order and all the activities that revolve around the kids. I feel like I’m still searching for that passion, yet I don’t want to let the clearly defined duties go undone in any way.
I don’t know if this falls under the category of dream, but it had been my pray since the beginning of our marriage that every generation of our offspring will marry individuals passionate for The Lord and pass it on to their children until the coming of The Lord.
Thank you, Naima, for your faithfulness to The Lord as you live out your dream and bless the multitudes. I am so blessed daily by you. God bless you. I guess it will be a later date that I work on that dream.
Love You, Lady.
Patrice
Hi Patrice,
I think your prayer is a worthy dream and I pray that the Lord will honor it and bless it to come to pass. And since you know that it’s right in line with his will, I don’t see why it wouldn’t come to pass. Love it!
Thanks for your words of encouragement. And I pray that the Lord will answer the questions that you’ve had before Him before the end of the year. Congratulations on your bible study, guitar and piano lessons on top of all your other responsibilities. Do it, do it! Lots of love!