Have you ever looked at the circumstance of your life and wondered, just who is in charge anyway?
Let's take a look the life of Joseph.
Joseph was a 17 year-old who had some dreams that indicated his brothers and his father would bow down to him.
So here is Joseph and things seem to be going well. He is the favored son of his father and has dreams of an amazing future.
But not everyone was happy with his dreams. Joseph's brothers hated him for being his father's favorite and even more for the dreams he had.
And that resentment puts them on an ugly path, as resentment always does.
"Here comes that dreamer!" they said to each other. "Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams.""- Genesis 37:19-20 (NIV)
This plot ends with Jacob being told his son was dead and Joseph being sold as a slave, headed for Egypt.
What happened? Everything was going so well? Where is God in all this?
Have you ever felt like that?
God gives you a dream or a promise or a direction. Then it seems everything in life has more power than God.
Is this what it means to be called by God?
At those times it is important to remember what Jesus said to Pilate during his trial. Pilate thought he was in charge of Jesus' fate, Jesus knew where the true authority over his life came from.
Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin." John 19:11 (NIV)
I have heard it said that God has to make the dreamer ready for the dream. For the next few days, we'll take a look at how that played out in the life of Joseph.
