Everybody Has a Dream

Genesis 41: 1-40

Two years later, Pharaoh has a dream. He sees seven fat cows grazing and seven ugly, gaunt cows (was Egypt currently overrun with beautiful cows?) came up and ate the fat cows. Then Pharaoh woke up, perhaps craving a good steak and a glass of milk. When he went back to sleep he dreamed of seven healthy heads of grain on a single stalk. Seven other heads of grain popped up, thin and wind-scorched. The thin ones swallowed up the fat ones.

Moses lets us know- it had been a dream. Were things so different in this era ordinarily that Moses needs to emphasize that the stalks of grain didn't really eat each other?

So none of the wisemen can figure out the dream. And then the cupbearer remembers our old friend Joe. He recants his tale of dreaming in prison and the fate of himself and the baker and Pharoah is sold.

Pharoah sends for Joseph. He shaves and changes his clothes and goes before Pharaoh. Pharaoh tells Joe that he's had a dream and no one can figure it out- but word on the street is that you've got a knack with such things.

Joseph replies that he can't do it "but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires." Is this Joseph speaking the same way Red Sox player Trot Nixon does when he says that it was Jesus swinging the bat for him tonight, or is he speaking for God? It feels like the latter, but it's a pretty bold claim if that's true. I wouldn't dare claim that God will do something for someone that He hasn't specifically promised already. What if this interpretation wasn't part of God's plan- or maybe God has already warned Joseph about the event and told him that He'll come through for him.

However it was, it turns out the dream predicts famine- seven years of it following seven years of plenty. Oh and by the way Pharaoh, Joseph shamelessly plugs, you'll need a wise man in charge of storing up twenty percent of the food in the good years to use as food in the lean years. Oh where will you find such a man...what? Me? Well I guess I could if you don't need me in prison anymore...

Pharoah says that since God has Joseph's ear, there is no one wiser in the land. You are in charge and people will follow your orders. "Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you."

Two huge things here-
First, there may be great lulls in our lives where it seems that we aren't being productive, where we aren't fitting into God's work- where we might even begin to question our worth in God's eyes because we seem to be just treading water. Joseph sat for two years in prison just waiting, and the plan that had been working out years before finally started to more blatantly include Joseph. Patience and the ability to realize that we don't know the big picture may be essential tools to following God.

Second, the good that Joseph does helping the cupbearer pays off...two years later. When we do good works we may never see the fruit that comes from it- or if we do...it may be way down the line. We may undersestimate the impact our interactions have on others. Actions we make out of love may do everlasting good for ourselves and the object of that love.

Sadly the opposite may be even more true.