CHAPTER 1
Problems in a Pit!
All of us have dreams. We want to maximize our life potential. The goal is to see our dreams become a reality. Our dreams light a fire in our spirits and souls, and we begin to take the necessary steps to make our dreams come true. Our dreams are written across the hard drive of our memories. We eat, sleep, and envision the dream day in and day out. There is an undeniable excitement to see the dream through to completion. Inevitably, we become driven by our dreams and become very passionate in the dream process.
We have different dreams ranging from the simple to the complex. Some dreams will be limited to a personal impact, and then there are dreams that will have a global impact. Dreamers like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs fall in the latter of the two.
Regardless of the length, breadth, and height of our dreams, there is one common thread that runs through all of them, and that is, they do not come true with the wave of a magical wand. Dreams require work. Dreams require sweat equity. Dreams require drive and determination.
The bigger the dream, the more work that is required to bring the dream to fruition. This is certainly the case when God gives a person a dream. God's dreams come with a lot of challenges and complications in part because God withholds a lot of information when He gives the dream to the dreamer.
When God gives us a dream, very rarely does He tell us up front that the dream road will be filled with brutal bumps along the way. When God dream-drafts us, very rarely does He tell us that the dream journey will be filled with devastating detours and delays. When dreams are relayed from God to us, He is very unlikely to share with us up front that the road to our destiny will be filled with dangers seen and unseen.
While we may be primed and pumped to find the pot of gold at the end of our dream rainbow, the dream giver often leaves out the fact that our journey will have many jolts along the way. Along the way, we run into walls. We envision a bright future, but often, we are not prepared for the plethora of punishing propositions that are waiting for us.
This would seem to be contradictory of God to dream-draft us to impact the world but leave out the hurdles that we will have to overcome on the way to realizing our dream. A great parallel to this is Dorothy in the land of Oz. She was informed that the wizard of Oz could help her get back to Kansas, but no one bothers to tell her that she would have to overcome a wicked witch, winged monkeys, and a poppy filed along the way.
What unseen challenges had you had to overcome along the way to your dream realization? What roadblocks did you encounter? What booby traps did you have to navigate on your journey? Did you get mad at God for not giving you advance warning as you worked your way toward the dream that you held in your heart?
The greater the dream that we have been given, the greater the challenges to make that dream come true that we encounter. The bigger the dream the bigger the barriers that we will have to break to cross the dream finish line.
Turbulence and testing are very much a real part of the race to make our dreams come true. Both of these twin titans can discourage us and throw us off our dream track. Yet if we process them correctly, they can aid us along the way. Pilots do not stop flying an airplane when they hit turbulence. They simply either fly through or fly above the turbulence. Also, their destination does not change because they are run into turbulence. For example, if a plane leaves Los Angeles and its destination is New York City and it runs into turbulence over Texas, it does not turn around and return to Los Angeles because the destination is still New York City. The pilot keeps flying. When your dream hits turbulence, you must keep on flying.
We should not expect to have a painless dream journey. Dream-drafting can be hazardous and dangerous. Dreaming can put us in the direct line of fire from critics and crags who do not want to see our dreams come true. We must avoid the "Alice in Wonderland" syndrome leading us to believe that there will be scores of cheerleaders with bright pom-poms cheering us on.
Another fact about dreaming is that there are rarely any shortcuts and there is no yellow-brick road. The road to dream fulfillment weaves and works its way through terrible twists and turns that often taunt us. One of the saddest twists lies in the acts of sabotage by those closest to us.
Such was the case of seventeen-year-old Hebrew boy by the name of Joseph, who has been dream-drafted by God to rise to a position of prominence, thus saving his race. God gives him two great and grand dreams with him being elevated over his brothers and even his father, Israel.
This does not set well with Joseph's brothers, who already hold him in disdain because he is the favorite son and his father had given him a multicolored coat that he paraded around town in. Boy, does Joseph's dream get him into a huge mess? "When his brothers saw that their father love him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him" (Gen. 37:4—NIV).
Sometimes on your dream journey, you will have to process sibling rivalries. More often than not, we have to overcome the jealousy and roadblocks set by family members as we share our dreams and take the necessary steps to make them come true. For some reason, there are times when those closest to us have minimum expectations of us, and this can be very discouraging if we lack sibling management skills.
While Joseph was giddy and glowing about his dream because God gave it to him, he did not have a clue about what was about to happen to him. When God dream-drafted Joseph, He failed to tell him that his dream would be a maddening mixture of promise and pain. Joseph had zero clue that his dream would be a strange mixture of hallelujah and heartbreak. Poor Joseph thought that his dream would be embraced; instead, it was rejected.
Joseph was not the last dreamer who had to deal with intrafamily squabbling. Have you had sibling rivalries? How did you deal with them? Who disappointed you the most in your family? Did they make you feel like giving up on your dream? How did you adjust to their discouraging acts?
Prior to being dream-drafted by God, Joseph's life is sweet and simple. However, after the dream, Joseph's life turns into a mess. He has mess on his left. He has mess on his right. He has mess in front of him, and he has mess behind him. God never said a word to Joseph about the mess that would be attached to his dream.
If you are like me, you have had to work your way through mess as you walked into your destiny. You might not have always seen it coming, but when it arrived, you recognized it for the maddening mess that it was. Dream living is not exempt from mess.
When mess pops up in our dreams, we have to trust God will work us out of the mess. In fact, when we have been dream-drafted by God, He might not prevent the mess, but it is His responsibility to get us out of the mess since we did not ask Him to be dream-drafted.
I want to take this step a step further and tell you that God factors mess into our dream-drafting before He sends us the dream. No matter how big the mess that we encounter, we have to trust that God will turn the mess into a miracle. Working our way out of a mess is almost never an instant event. Instead, it is often a process whereby God mops up the mess in stages. Failures are fixed through a process.
So what is this mess that is interwoven into Joseph's dream? His brothers' hate for him increased after he shared his dream with them. "His brothers said to him, 'Do you intend to reign over us?' And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said" (Gen. 37:8—NIV). The earlier that you realize you cannot share your dreams with everyone, the better your dream life is going to be. A very few people really want to see you excel past them. They will work overtime to turn your dream into a nightmare.
Who did you share your dream with that you thought would support you but they ended up hating you? Who did you share your dream with and they worked overtime to sabotage you? Who did you share your dream with and you had to turn around and say, "Et tu Brute"? Dreams should be kept close to the vest and only shared at a designated time in the future. I call this the Virgin Mary principle. After the angel told her that she was pregnant with Jesus, Luke says, "But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19—KJV).
Sometimes, we have to zip our lips and only share our dreams thoughts in the safe confines of our minds. You will quickly learn that a lot of people around you will not share your enthusiasm for your dream. Intentionally or not, they will discourage you and attempt to railroad your dream.
When we share our dream with the wrong people, they will attempt to drown our dream. They will try to hang our hope. They will try to frustrate our future. They will try to plummet our possibilities. Dream-drafting is a personal experience, and some things have to be "pondered" in the heart instead of being shared.
While Joseph's brothers hated him more after he had his first dream, God sent a second dream to confirm the first dream. Their hating did not change the dream in any way or cause God to withdraw the dream. The dream is confirmed instead of cancelled.
There is great therapy in knowing that God does not abort our dreams simply because someone hates our dream. God does not seek the permission of those around before He dream-drafts us. While we would love to have the support of family and friends with our dreams, it is not necessary because God will connect us to dream partners from somewhere else.
We must never make the mistake of thinking that someone can block our dreams. There is a huge difference between someone frustrating our dream and them blocking our dream. We should never confuse someone attempting to sabotage our dream versus them stopping our dream. No amount of venomous and vicious behavior by your dream haters can stop your dream. No force in hell or on earth can keep God from vouchsafing a vision to you. You will quickly learn on your dream journey that you do not need who you think that you need to realize your dream.
Who did you fear would stop your dream? Who were you afraid that would wreck your dream? Who almost talked you out of your dream? Did you listen to them? How did you respond to them? Did you question the authenticity of your dream because of them? Did they manage to get you off track? Where were they now? Were you still dreaming?
Joseph thought that he was doing the right thing by sharing his dream with his brothers, but he was unknowingly inviting disaster into his dream. Sometimes, it is through innocent acts that we err and open the door to avoidable harm. One of the greatest mishaps that are made during our dream journey is to share with our heart's desire with the wrong people. A lot of harm is done when we do the right thing with the wrong person.
So it was with Joseph. He shared with his brothers, and his dream quickly turned into a nightmare. In complete innocence, Joseph traveled to Dothan to check on his brothers at their father's request, and all hell broke out. In a matter of moments, his entire world was turned upside down, not by strangers but by family members.
They did not just want to give Joseph a schoolyard whipping. Their plan was not to merely give him a black eye. Joseph's brothers wanted to kill him. This is what his bloodthirsty brothers said, "'Here comes that dreamer!' they said to each other. 'Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams'" (Gen. 37:19 and 20—NIV).
As you travel down your dream road, you will discover that you will encounter dream killers. Sometimes, those closest to you are pumped and primed to be dream killers. They will plot and plan to kill your dream sometimes in a calculated way and sometimes in a very overt way. Dream killers will even enlist others to aid them in killing your dream.
Are you able to identify your dream killers? Were you shocked at who they were when you identified them? How did you feel when your dream killers were revealed to you? How did you deal with your dream killers?
Joseph had no idea of what was waiting for him in Dothan. He had good and innocent intentions, while his brothers had evil intentions. This happens very often during our dream journey. We cannot always see what is around the corner as we have limited vision. Yet we have to learn how to adjust to the things around the corner whether we see them coming or not. The dreamer delightfully works his way to Dothan with his multicolored coat shining in the midday sun. He had no idea that plans of fratricide awaited him. The time to put their plan to get rid of their brother in action had finally arrived. They had taken a unanimous vote to kill their younger brother. Again, this attempted coup de tats does not originate with some guys from Babylon. The guilty party is the guys who slept in the same home with Joseph with the exception of Benjamin.
As we work our way to dream realization, some of the deepest ditches will be dug by family members and not our foes. Sometimes, the worst war that we will wage in our dream journey is against family and not against friends. The painful reality is that no one can set booby traps for us like those who are closest to us. Why is this way? There is no clear-cut answer, but suffice it to say that, family is not always our fan when are pursuing our dream.
The closer that Joseph gets to them, the madder that they become. Their eyes are bulging. Their hair stands on their heads. They are gritting their teeth. Their flesh crawls. Their anger is blowing steam out of their ears. They are so consumed by their hatred that they can barely speak. Dream killers blow gaskets when they want to end your dream.
Out of this brood of bloodthirsty brothers, there was one brother who went against the majority vote of a death sentence. His name was Reuben. Let's call Reuben the rational brother. When he heard them discussing the plot, he said, "Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again" (Gen. 37:22—KJV).
Reuben was the oldest brother, and he knew that they were wrong and refused to cosign their madness. Reuben intervened on Joseph's behalf and talked the brothers into throwing Joseph into a pit with the intention of rescuing him later and returning him to their father.
Remember earlier when we said that when God dream-drafts us, it is up to Him to protect His investment. While we do not hear God mentioned in this passage, it has to be God who moves on the heart of Reuben to thwart the evil plan of the brothers to kill Joseph.
We have to thank God and celebrate the Reubens in our lives, who have held our dream killers at bay. The Reubens in life intervene on our behalf to keep our dream moving forward. The Reubens in our lives see the dream threats that we cannot possibly see. The Reubens in our lives sniff out the dream bombs that have been planted along our dream road. The Reubens in our lives will stand up against the majority dream killers and rescue us from their evil plans.
Reuben stands as the last bastion of hope between Joseph's planned death by his brothers and the lifeline to keep Joseph's dream alive. We must ever be mindful of the fact that there is almost always a threat to our dreams either by external forces whether they are family or foes.
God strategically places Reubens in our lives at the right time to thwart the plans of our dream killers. If there was no Reuben in Joseph's life, then I would not be writing this book. Our Reubens pop up when we need them the most, and the challenge to us is to recognize our Reuben.
Who had been your Reuben to keep your dream alive? Did you recognize your Reuben at first? How did you feel when your Reuben came to your rescue? How big of a difference did your Reuben make for you? Were you surprised when you found out who your Reuben was?
Off comes Joseph's robe, and he goes into the pit. In a matter of moments, his entire life is turned upside down. All it takes is one single event to turn your dream world upside down, one plot, one trap, one storm.
In one single fell swoop, Joseph is stripped of everything. The daily object of his brothers' hatred, the pretty little coat, is gone. Like a magician waving his wand and pulling a rabbit out of his hat, poof, just like that Joseph's dream goes poof and appears to have been drowned in a pit. This speaks to how fragile our dreams can be on the surface. Dreams can be shaken. Dreams can be jolted. Dreams can be rocked. Dreams can be traumatized. Dreams can appear to be deferred. But none of these things that can happen to dreams mean that our dreams cannot be realized. It simply means that our dreams have to survive the pit.
Biblical pits were very ugly places. They could be filled with water and were used as dungeons as well as traps for wild animals. The hallmark of Joseph's pit was a bed of rocks and roots. Pits were often cold and lonely. Imagine this seventeen-year-old-boy hands bound cramped into a pit not knowing his fate. Afraid. Uncertain. Defeated. Crying. Why me? Abandoned. Forgotten. These were just some of the thoughts that raced through the dreamer's mind. Worse still, Joseph's screams for help from the pit went unanswered.
