“Dreams Rightly Applied” – A United Church of Christ StillSpeaking Daily Devotional by The Rev. Kaji Douša

Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. – Genesis 37:5 (ESV)

The ideas that come out of your sleep have the benefit of not going through all your filters that push aside your biggest thoughts.

In other words: it’s one of the times when you’re closest to God. But what do we do with this? What do we do with our dreams?  

The Bible tells us what Joseph did with one of his dreams: he told his family, which I believe reflected his spiritual immaturity. He ran the vision through his very human, very ego-driven filters. He read the dream with a selfish power analysis that left God out.  

Pro tip: when you leave God out of your visioning, there will be consequences. Hopefully not as drastic as Joseph’s.  

We can receive our signs and wonders. But sometimes we haven’t done the work to be ready for them. That work begins with gratitude.  

Here and now: you are tangibly blessed. And when we challenge ourselves to keep looking for these blessings, our lens changes. It opens up a space to see the signs and wonders in those blessings that are already there. That’s how we build the muscle and the spiritual maturity to be able to handle the bigger visions.  

Because if we’re not ready, and we don’t know where our blessings come from, and we’re not practiced in seeing God’s place in all of this, we can make the same mistake as young Joseph—who wasn’t ready for his visions.  

Prayer

I am ready to be ready.