Prayer Helps Dreams Come True – Part 3(A)

Have you ever been given a dream by your Heavenly Father, perhaps many years ago, but you are still waiting to see it come to pass? From a young age, my sweetheart, Hilda, had dreamed of becoming a writer. It was never her desire to be famous. Rather, she realized the power of words to bless others. She knew that God had given her this gift, and she strongly desired to use it for His glory. God gave her this gift to bless and to encourage friends and family to grow in loving and trusting Jesus.

During my childhood and teenage years, I enjoyed using my imagination to create and invent games, wanting to make life fun for my siblings and friends at church. Unfortunately, my dreams of being creative were not nurtured by family at all, and especially not encouraged by adult mentors in my church. This dream of using my imagination, was considered worthless in the pursuit of a career. It certainly was not considered of value to honour Jesus or be useful to His Kingdom.

God Has Made Us Each Unique

I was often told that certain natural talents or gifts, including artistic ability, should not be developed, as they would only lead to pride, which God hates. That really set me back for many years, and made me feel that perhaps my creative personality needed to be suppressed as a waste of time, or it might even become a tool of the enemy at worst.

Only “practical gifts” were considered of value to God, by the mentors around me. These “practical gifts” such as musical talents, abilities for public speaking or teaching, and especially, the ability to work with your hands to build or repair useful items, to cook for others, or to care for others’ physical needs were considered worthwhile, and encouraged by my mentors.

It took a grade 9 art teacher, to ignite in me a dream of using my undeveloped abilities in drawing and painting. Some of my early paintings were shown at an art fair. Slowly, God helped me realize that my creativity with drawing and painting were a gift given by Him. He could use this gift for His glory. Now this gift just needed to be developed.

God Has A Wonderful Plan For Each Of Us

I believe that as we surrender our lives to God, He gives us dreams that align with His best plans for us. When God gives us a dream to accomplish something, He puts it into our hearts to pray about it as well. It is the Creator’s will that the desires and talents that He Himself has placed inside us be realized.

Do you have loving parents who nurtured your talents and abilities from a young age? God is often compared to a loving Father. He is supremely concerned about the fulfillment of the great person He envisions you to be. He wants you to catch from Him some of His vision for you. Prayer is cooperating with God, in bringing from Heaven to Earth, His wondrously good plans for you.

God Gave Joseph Dreams Of His Future

In Genesis, a young teenager named Joseph, the one with the coat of many colours, was gifted by God with an ability to interpret dreams. Joseph was given these dreams by God, but they were not only considered worthless by his family, they were considered hateful and prideful. Genesis 37:3-11 shares the beginnings of Joseph’s gift of dreams from God…

“3 Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe.

4 But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him.

5 One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever.

6 “Listen to this dream,” he said.

7 “We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine!”

8 His brothers responded, “So you think you will be our king, do you? Do you actually think you will reign over us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them.

9 Soon Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it. “Listen, I have had another dream,” he said. “The sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed low before me!”

10 This time he told the dream to his father as well as to his brothers, but his father scolded him. “What kind of dream is that?” he asked. “Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow to the ground before you?”

11 But while his brothers were jealous of Joseph, his father wondered what the dreams meant.

If you know the story of Joseph’s life, you will recall that when he shared these dreams with his brothers, it caused them to hate him to the degree that they wanted to kill him. When they had the opportunity they sold him into slavery to get rid of him, or so they thought. For many years, Joseph suffered through the difficult life of a slave, and then became an unjustly condemned prisoner in jail. He must have wondered if the dreams God gave to Him would ever come to pass.

Trusting God Allows Our Dreams To Be Fulfilled

Even during his trials, Joseph never lost his faith in God. Wherever he was found, Joseph served in such a way that he was promoted time and time again. During his time in prison, God gave Joseph the gift of being able to interpret dreams. Eventually his God-given ability for interpreting dreams reached the ears of the great Pharoah of Egypt. “It is beyond my power to do this,” Joseph replied. “But God can tell you what it means and set you at ease” (Genesis 41:16). God gave Joseph the understanding of Pharoah’s dream, which warned of a seven-year period of plentiful harvests, but then a very terrible oncoming drought of seven years throughout the world.

Not only did Joseph have the ability to interpret dreams, but God gave him special wisdom to know what to do about the drought. Pharoah perceived Joseph’s God-given wisdom, and took Joseph’s wise advice on how to deal with the upcoming drought. Pharoah appointed Joseph as the second highest ranking official in Egypt, just behind Pharoah himself. By applying the wisdom God gave to Joseph, Egypt ended up saving the lives of millions of people throughout their country and the surrounding world, as foreigners flocked to Egypt for food.

This true story took an amazing turn during the seven-year famine. Joseph’s wicked brothers came to Egypt looking to buy food for their families. They were presented to Joseph, and all of them bowed down to him, just as in Joseph’s dreams decades earlier. After testing his brothers’ character, Joseph revealed himself to them. He shared this amazing revelation from God about the wicked deeds of his brothers and the outcome of his dreams from God…

“As far as I am concerned, God turned into good what you meant for evil, for he brought me to this high position I have today so that I could save the lives of many people” (Genesis 50:20).

Prayer Helps Dreams Come True – Part 3(B) – To Follow