Dear reader, how are you doing? I hope you had a great week! My week? It was good actually, thanks to God, and thank you for asking. 🙂
So today, I will be sharing something that struck me as studied Genesis 37 which is the chapter that highlights Joseph’s story, his dreams, and his brother’s reaction to his dreams. Genesis 37 verse 9 would be my emphasis for today’s blog post – Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.
This dream that Joseph had and shared with his brothers caused a ripple reaction of jealousy and envy- Genesis 37:11. In my opinion, it was only a dream but then again their reaction may be a pointer to how powerful dreams are. They were jealous of his dreams because they knew that they would definitely come true. Regardless, I believe their reactions to Joseph’s dreams could have been different if they paid attention to the fact that they were referred to as stars in Joseph’s dream.
Stars are by no means insignificant in the world, if they had paid close attention to this, they would have realized that they all had their individual, different kinds of glory to shine. Stars literally light up the skies in the dark, stars shine so bright to light up the world when darkness falls on the earth. And each star, though on its own all shine together to light up the skies without bothering or worrying about the other star beside it. As numerous as the stars are in the skies, the Lord knows them all by their names and the population of the stars never stops the other from showing up each night every day.
The Lord took His time to describe to us in I Corinthians 15: 40- 41 through Apostle Paul the differences in the glory of different things that He created. God created everything for a purpose to shine for His glory. They may all shine differently but they all still shine and that includes you and me.
You may say but I corinthians was written decades after the brothers of Joseph lived. Regardless, Joseph had access to what his star was like and he walked in the knowledge of that. If you go ahead to read Joseph’s story as a slave boy in a different country and even a prisoner, he carried himself and demonstrated himself as a superstar. He shone and stood out everywhere that he went even in the prison. But my focus today isn’t on Joseph’s mindset and knowledge of himself, my focus is how he became and kept being so self-aware.
The answer is his relationship with God. Genesis 37 verse 2 is a pointer to the fact that he reverenced God because he reported to his father the bad things that his brothers engaged in. And as we read further about Joseph, He chose to honor God rather than climax in sexual pleasure with his boss’s wife. – Genesis 39:9. I believe that for a young man his age, it takes a level of relationship with the Lord to be able to firmly say no to sex.
And this takes me right back to my focus for today’s blog post; our relationship with God helps us in the realization of ourselves. The more we draw close to God, the more He reveals more about Himself, about ourselves, and things that we ask Him. And as these things are being revealed to us, jealousy and envy give way to working and walking in the light of Jesus Christ. Jealousy and envy have ruined the best of kings such as King Saul who was constantly jealous of the young boy David who wasn’t king yet but just a young boy who knew and loved the Lord.
Let us picture this together, I have had conversations with young adults and teenagers who are trying to figure out this thing called life. To be honest, as we grow, the more figuring we have to do. With that said, it is safe to say that we are in the dark about certain things about our lives right? But our Father in heaven is light and there is no darkness in Him – I John 1:5. So if our father in heaven is filled with so much light, imagine what happens to us when we spend time with Him? We would begin to see clearly and better. This was what Joseph did, He spent time with God and allowed God’s light to permeate through all of him.
The time he spent with God helped Him recognize the gift of dream interpretation that God had planted in Him and it was this same gift that shot him to the limelight. Although it took a while, it still eventually happened. (There indeed is time for everything)
With all that I have said, I would end this blog post by encouraging us to invest and build on our intimacy with the Lord as it goes a long way in helping us recognize the kind of star that we are and even more how to shine bright for the world to see to the glory of the Lord. I shared some helpful tips of how I stay intimate with my Jesus here, you could read and incorporate one or two. But the most important thing is that you find a rhythm that works for you and the Lord.
May our intimacy with the Lord wax stronger and stronger in Jesus’ name,
Amen.