Read Joseph's story in Gen 37:1
Everything begins with a dream, and a hope and a belief that something can come within our reach, that right now might seem impossible or even improbable of ever happening. However when your dream is God inspired, you can be certain that by his power it will be achieved.
The story of Joseph, is an amazing inspiration to us all, of just how far God can take someone, from the lowest pit of life, to the pinnacle of success that only God can bring!
Perhaps your feeling at a low ebb here at the start of this year. Perhaps everything’s gone wrong, and the dream you once had of a very different life, has been swallowed up in a deep black hole! If so, your not alone, or the only person such circumstances have occurred too.
Joseph was a young man who God gave a dream too, a dream that beggared the minds of those who he told it too, including his brothers and father. His dream ended up angering his brothers and made them jealous enough to want to kill him! (don't expect everyone around you to be supportive of your dreams in life!)
Joseph was his father, Jacobs, favorite son. A son upon whom he bestowed a lot of love, a multicolored coat and the desire to see him prosper in life. But this was not his brothers desire.
In short order all of Joseph's dreams and comfortable environment came crashing down into a deep dark pit!
Lost to all he knew, his coat of favor torn from him and his life hanging in the balance, his circumstances seemed to have taken a terminal dip.
To add to this evil change of events, his brothers go on to sell him into slavery in Egypt by the hand of a bunch of hairy Ishmaelite’s!
However Joseph's story is one of the Bibles ultimate overcoming success stories!
Life may throw you into a pit but if God is with you, then the pit will never determine your destiny! God is the master of our destiny, he's created us to run our life's race through the power and guidance of his Holy Spirit! Even if you feel struck down, don't give up on your dream, don’t give up your fight! Help is on your side, in the shape of Gods amazing spirit!
Joseph might have lain in the pit and felt “it's over for me”. He may have felt when the slave drivers tied him behind the rear end of a camel and dragged him to Egypt, that yes this is how it will end. But the word says that the Lord was with him!
In Egypt he's sold to Potipher the captain of Pharaoh’s guard and God begins to turn around Joseph's situation, till he's into a place of favor in the eyes of this high up official.
Soon everything the man owns is under the hand of Joseph!
This story reads a bit like a roller-coaster of one minute heading up before yet another crash comes.
Potipher’s wife it says, is soon setting her beady eyes upon him, and winds up bringing Joseph down from his position of favor into the worst place he could have ended up in.
A dungeon becomes his new home and this does not come with your modern day privileges, but chains and certain death not far away.
It's amazing how God can still be positioning your life for success even when it looks like you've entered hell.
To the untrained eye, even possibly Joseph's, it appeared that things were heading for bust, but God was not finished, and his dream and destiny were calling even in a dungeon.
If its possible to prosper in the pit, in a dungeon, then Joseph did!
I love these verses in Psalm 105:18-23 that says (speaking of Joseph here) "Who's feet they hurt with fetters and they laid him in iron until his word from the Lord came!"
God gives Joseph favor in the eyes of the chief jailer, and soon Joseph is running the dungeon!! Talk about success in an impossible situation.
The only way to face life, is with the overcoming power of Jesus. It’s his spirit on the inside of you, that will keep stirring you up to fight on, rise above, believe till the mountain moves and the flood water subsides. It's his super abundant help around you, that will work with you, until his word comes for you and calls you out of the pit into the light of his amazing destiny for your life!
In the prison the scene is set for Josephs dream to begin to come to pass. Joseph didn't know it but he was about to be propelled out of darkness to become second to Pharaoh himself, by a set of miraculous God manoeuvres, which battle ungrateful butlers and being forgotten, till he's brought up and out into Gods plan of salvation for his entire family!
Here at the start of this year, you may be staring at the Walls of your pit and your dreams seem lost and out of your reach but I challenge you to believe God once again and stir yourself to make the effort to overcome. Even if your situation is of your own making, if you love God, then the dream is still alive and his plan and destiny are still awaiting you.
Get a vision for that and let's get rid of the things that are bogging your life down. This is a week that's all about getting rid of the mindsets and negative attitudes, the feelings of hopelessness and defeat, and to let an overcoming spirit stir you up to bother to try again.
Joseph ended up after all his uphill struggles and set backs, at the hand of the most powerful king of that day, becoming Gods means of salvation to many people. His dream that had seemed so far away, became a reality!
Written by Dade