Thwarted Dreams?

As a human being, I’ve had my share of dreams for my life. As a child of God, my life is in His hands. That means that He rules the direction I take and controls whether or not those dreams are fulfilled.

Many years ago the church denomination with which I am affiliated was looking for people to be on their national education board. I had a dream of being involved in Christian education and my curricula vitae qualified me, so I applied. After doing so, I began thinking that since this denomination refused certain positions to divorced people (a cautionary policy in case the issues surrounding the causes of the breakup are not resolved), that I should make them aware that I had been divorced. That happened before I became a Christian (ten years prior), but my conscience said this was important. When I did, the head office asked me to withdraw my application.

In those early years of belonging to Jesus, I had learned the importance of submission. To me, this was not church officials being mean, but God using those in authority to guide my life. I didn’t fight their decision, even though (in my opinion), blanket policies might have value in the church, yet each situation should be examined and prayed over, not automatically determined by a policy. However, I accepted this because I trusted God. Early on He made it clear to me that He was “working all things together” for my good (Romans 8:28).

Before this happened, I may have read the story of Joseph, but since then it has become a personal favorite. Joseph had a dream too. He dreamed that he would become a powerful leader and his brothers, even his parents, would bow down before him. This dream made his brothers very angry. They sold him into slavery and he wound up a servant in Egypt, then a false accusation put him in prison. There he interpreted dreams for two other prisoners. One was released and promised to give a good word for Joseph, but he forgot. Later, the leader of Egypt had a dream and this man remember Joseph’s interpretation abilities. Joseph did it, was released, and wound up second in command to Pharaoh.

The dreams involved a famine so severe that it affected Joseph’s family back home in Canaan. When they came to Egypt to buy grain (stored up because of Joseph’s wise decisions), they wound up bowing before their brother, not realizing who he was. Later, when he told them, they were terrified of what he would do to them. But Joseph had realized that God’s hand had been on him. His dreams seemed thwarted, yet God had a better plan. In Genesis 50:20, Joseph says to his brothers, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”

My reading today in God is Enough says that “disappointments are often direct gateways to prosperity in the very things we have thought they were going to ruin forever.” It goes on to suggest that when God puts a roadblock in what seems a great opportunity, we can either conclude that all is over and give up in despair, or see that God knows what He is doing.

In my case, I didn’t get onto that educational board. However, I was given the opportunity to write a feature column in the denominational magazine. The column ran for many years—and the educational board? It was disbanded only a few months after I’d withdrawn my application.

God knew. He knew that I’d not only be disappointed, but that writing for the magazine gave me a shot at influence in far more lives than I would have had serving on that short-lived CE board. While I don’t think I was turned from that board out of meanness or an evil intention, God thwarted my dream, and by the responses I received from that column, He used it for good.

Just as written in God is Enough, He changed the very thing I thought was a sorrow into a crown of joy. Since then, I’ve seen over and over how roadblocks can be a test of perseverance, but more often they are God’s way of moving me from following what I thought was a good idea into following His will, which is far better.