As I sit staring out my living room window, the snow and ice are finally retreating, and spring has finally sprung. The sky is that perfect blue, with the occasional fluffy cloud floating by.
As I took this short moment to reflect, memories of my youth flashed in my mind, of being a kid in the summer, lying in the grass with friends, carefree, nowhere to be, enjoying the heat of the day, staring at the clouds, and daydreaming.
We all remember Joseph, Jacob’s 11th son. He was a dreamer. He was only a teen when he had those dreams about his future. Did he really know what they meant at the time? Probably not, and he wasn’t wise enough to keep them to himself, and in his pride, he unwisely shared his dreams with his brothers, who, in their jealousy and anger, plotted to get rid of him.
But we know his dreams were from God.
I wonder if he thought very much about those dreams when he was thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, and eventually imprisoned? I doubt it. If he remembered them at all in those days, I doubt they seemed significant in a prison cell. And even when he was elevated to second in command of all of Egypt, I suspect the dreams were a distant memory.
But when extreme famine struck, it drove his brothers to Egypt to find food for the family. And in Genesis 42 we read: “And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them” (Gen. 42:8-9 ESV).
He remembered, and it all made sense to him now.
When my wife and I were engaged, she took me to meet May. May was a widow in her 80s. She had always dreamed of being a missionary, but life and circumstances meant those dreams were never fulfilled. One day, her pastor was talking to her about this and said, “You know, you can still fulfill that dream now, but through others.”
And so she began giving money to support young missionaries who went all over the world. One of them was my wife, and we would not have met if it were not for May recovering the dreams of her youth.
I bet there are many of us like May and Joseph, who had dreams of our youth, dreams and visions of the future, things God had put in our hearts long ago. Ways to serve Him, His Church, and His Kingdom. But these dreams become dormant, lying beneath years of our lives that took turns we did not expect, or were perhaps squelched by hopelessness and despair.
Do you have dreams on which you have never acted? Do you have dreams, perhaps from God, that you are remembering now, and it is time to do something and bring them into reality?
What better time than as we move into the season of Pentecost. Pentecost reminds us of a group of disciples, following Jesus, who had hoped He was the Messiah, only to have their dreams seemingly destroyed, only to have them revived again on Easter Sunday.
And then, 50 days later, just as He promised, the Spirit was poured out on them all, and they began to do things they could never have imagined, and see God use them in ways they had never been used before. Their dreams became reality.
This can be us today, in our time, in our communities, in our congregations. For God doesn’t simply love you, but He has placed you here in this time for a reason. And so may we remember our dreams, and may we ask the Lord to renew us, for He is the one “who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psa. 103:5 ESV).
And may we have hope and the will to step out in faith into those dreams, for “we can do all things through him who strengthens us” (Phil. 4:13 ESV).
