Joy and Strength (Christian life and music)

Old Testament Joseph is one of my favorite people in the Bible. Joseph was a big dreamer.  He had a dream that his brothers, and even his parents, would one day bow down to him. When God gives you a dream, He doesn’t mess around.  God knows the future.  God has a plan for your life.  God knows where He is sending you and how to get you there.  God has ways of accomplishing things that we could never imagine.   The dream wasn’t about Joseph’s “greatness.”  But that’s how his brothers misinterpreted Joseph’s dream. NOTE: not everyone will understand your God-given dreams. The dream was about how God chose Joseph for a specific role in life, and not just in his family’s life. God sees the big picture.  That is so comforting to me.  That character quality alone makes me want to worship Him.  He is omniscient.   God planted the dream inside of Joseph.  I’m guessing that Joseph might have thought about how he  was going to make that dream come true.  God simply smiled. Do you have a dream?  

God is building us.  God is after our hearts.  God is chipping away at us until He is formed in us fully. This is no instant endeavor!  I always marvel at how everything in life takes time to build.  Nowhere else in the world are there "instant" results.  And yet sometimes, we Christians want the easy way through difficulties.  We want that miraculous, instant deliverance from the Lord. Yes, He is more than able to deliver and heal instantly.  But these cases are the rare ones.   It's not that the Lord wants to see us suffer.  But He is the Master Technician knowing exactly which tools to use to bring us to our knees.  He wants us humbly at His feet because that is where the power is!  When we are weak, He is strong.  Even the children's Sunday school song reminds us of that.  The paradox is that He wants us strong!  Over and over again in Scripture, He tells us to be strong and courageous.  He tells us not to fear. But where does our boldness come from?  If we rely s