Sharing your Dreams – Genesis 37

" ² …Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers…³ Now Israel (his father) loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. Also he made him a tunic of many colors. ⁴ But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.

⁵ Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; and they hated him even more. ⁶ So he said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed: ⁷ There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.” ⁸ And his brothers said to him, “Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. ⁹ Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.” ¹⁰ So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?” ¹¹ And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind. ^{….. 18} Now when they (Joseph’s sibling) saw him (Joseph) afar off, even before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him. ¹⁹ Then they said to one another, “Look, this dreamer is coming! ²⁰ Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!”… ²² And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit which is in the wilderness, and do not lay a hand on him”… ²³ So it came to pass, when Joseph had come to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him…. ²⁶ So Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? ²⁷ Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh.” And his brothers listened. ²⁸ Then Midianite traders passed by; so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt…. ³¹ So they took Joseph’s tunic, killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the tunic in the blood. ³² Then they sent the tunic of many colors, and they brought it to their father and said, “We have found this. Do you know whether it is your son’s tunic or not?” ³³ And he recognized it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Without doubt Joseph is torn to pieces.” ³⁴ Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days. ³⁵ And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning.” Thus his father wept for him."

Here we have a great example of the fact that due to the content of some these personal revelations called dreams we must be careful when we talk about them, and who we share them with.    Not everyone is prepared to hear about these dreams, and God who had given you the chance to get these revelations might not want you to share these with anyone just yet until a certain point and only He knows if it’s not to be shared with the world but only for you. When we carelessly share a dream with someone who God had not intended for us to share it with, we could be opening ourselves to get a feedback that might not be what exactly the one we need, for it could get our eyes off track of perhaps an assignment given by God thru a dream.  

You might say that Joseph the main character was just a teenager, and due to his inexperience in life was talking too much. What his siblings did to him, today we call it bullying, and under that pressure people say and do things, and maybe the siblings as they heard Joseph’s dream thought he was speaking out of hurt, and he was being cocky. The truth is that they didn’t like it and decided to take matters into their own hands, I believe they might have said something like: “so what’s the easiest? Let’s get rid of this dreamer!”  They didn’t think about the hurt getting rid of the youngest of their siblings would bring to their dad, and if they did, they brush it off, and ignored it; in other words, their feelings topped their father’s, that’s a big one! When you place yourself over your parents; although there will be cases were due to physical or emotional illnesses in order to care for an elderly parent you will have to place your will over theirs but this was not Joseph’s case.

If we looked at Jacob’s attitude, we might find ourselves in his shoes, for I’m sure we all have reacted like him with our own children, to avoid further rivalry between them. So the father’s reaction was quite normal, if you would ask me.  BUT, the father kept the matter in mind, verse eleven says; it’s like we was thinking: “hum, maybe this is a revelation…. I’ll better keep this one fresh, just in case”

Another very common thing that we all can see today as well, is the fact that when people has a thorn in the flesh for someone else, or a jealous spirit hidden somewhere inside if they do not ask the Lord to clean their hearts, with time that jealousy seed, grows big. As the time keeps passing by and the seed keeps growing, you get more and more aggravated with people, it becomes a root of bitterness, which is a sin too. Sin, in time has a snowball-like effect the more the bigger it gets, until sin gives birth to something “even worst”, murder, in this case the plot to kill the brother; and on top, had to lie to cover the sin up.

So, next time your mouth tries to run wild and share something God had given you in  a dream, stop and ask God, and if that’s not the person ordained for you to tell, ask Him to get it off of your mind right at that moment, so you forget it and it becomes to be your queue to change your conversation’s subject.

And remember disobedience to God is not a keeper for our lives, neither it is to tell lies to cover something up, CLEAN YOU HEART, and COMMUNICATE with GOD DAILY!!!! It will spare you of lots of extra headaches in life.

Be blessed. I’m praying for you!