Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.
Joseph, at the end of his life, while in prison in Egypt, will interpret a dream of Pharaoh. That interpretation will change his life. It will become the fulfillment of these dreams we read above from when he was just a boy. In his youth God prepared him for the needs of his later life. God often prepares us in the past for what He wants to use us for in the future. Note this story from the future king, David, when he was preparing to fight Goliath:
1 Samuel 17:34-37 (ESV)
But David said to Saul, “Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him. Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.” And David said, “The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” And Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you!”
When Moses wandered in the wilderness for 40 years that was to prepare him for leading the nation of Israel in the same wilderness for 40 years. God used men in Israel to craft and build the tabernacle who first learned their skills while in captivity in Egypt. God used the training Paul had as a Pharisee to later equip him to argue Jesus against those very same Jewish leaders. God uses the past to train us for the future. If you want to know what might be a future work to do for God look to the past to see how He has prepared you for that work.
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