When we set out on a journey, especially one of some distance, we are not surprised when we encounter such things as road blocks, detours and other holdups. This is normal, it doesn’t really surprise us. But when we have a dream and circumstances conspire to keep us from fulfilling that dream, we give up too easily. The following story illustrates the fact that if you hold on to your dream you can go from ‘pit to palace’.
The Story of Joseph
Most of us are familiar with the story of Joseph and his coat of many colours. Joseph, whose father was Jacob, was the youngest of twelve brothers. He was his father’s favorite, a situation which did not endear Joseph to the rest of the family. To make matters worse, his father did not attempt to hide his affection for Joseph when he presented Joseph with a special coat. Now, in that culture, what you wore signified to everyone your status and position so this went against the position of authority or, as we would say the ‘pecking order’ of the family structure.
Now Joseph had a dream, one in which he saw himself in a position of authority over his brothers as they bowed down before him. Nothing wrong with having a dream but you should be careful who you tell it too. Even if it’s family you don’t have to tell them everything. Joseph did not have this wisdom and with the impetuosity of youth, told all. This did not sit well with the brothers and we see their attitude towards Joseph rapidly changing from jealousy to outright hatred.
From that day they plotted and planned how they could get rid of Joseph. They decided that they would go on a trip, take Joseph with them, kill him, sprinkle blood on his coat and then tell their father, Jacob, that a wild animal had attacked Joseph and killed him. Having agreed on this plan, the opportunity soon arose for them to go on a trip so, taking Joseph with them they set off to put their plan into operation. When they got to a certain spot, they prepared to kill Joseph and put his body in a pit but, due to the intervention of one of the brothers, they decided not to kill him, but sell Joseph to a group of travelling traders. This they did, and to prove to their father that Joseph had met with a sticky end, they killed an animal and spread its blood on Joseph’s coat.
So, the group of traders continued on their way with Joseph in tow, and eventually ended up in Egypt. Here they unloaded Joseph for a price, into the home of a high ranking official by the name of Potifer. During the years that followed, Joseph excelled in his duties until he found himself in a position of chief of staff in Potifer’s household. This was quite a prestigious position and I’m sure when Joseph thought about his dream he must have thought everything was on track. There was, however, an impending derailment of that dream in the form of Potifer’s wife.
Potifer’s wife had taken a ‘bit of a shine’ to Joseph but when her feelings were not reciprocated she was less than pleased. In a fit of spite, she went to her husband and accused Joseph of attempted rape. The result of this accusation was, that Joseph lost his position as chief of staff and ended up in prison.
You could have forgiven Joseph for wondering at this stage, what on earth is happening to this great dream. The pit was a bit of a setback to say the least, but things seemed to be’ on the up’ since then and now look what’s happened, he’s ended up in prison. Surely, when you have such a strong dream it’s supposed to go a lot smoother than this.
It would appear from the record that Joseph spent a few years in prison, and it was not until his proficiency at interpreting dreams was brought to the attention of Pharaoh, that he got another break. Pharaoh himself had had a dream, and none of his wise men could tell him what it meant, so when he heard about Joseph’s ability he sent for him. When Joseph was brought into the presence of Pharaoh and heard the dream, he was able to tell Pharaoh exactly what it meant, and Pharaoh was so impressed, Joseph ended up in a position equivalent to Prime Minister.
Now Pharaoh’s dream concerned an impending famine coming upon the land, and as Joseph’s interpretation gave the Egyptians the solution on how to avoid catastrophe, Joseph was put in charge of the whole project.
As Pharaoh’s dream came true, and the famine took hold, they were well prepared for it, but other parts of the country did not fare so well. This included the part of the country where Joseph’s father and brothers lived. As they ran out of food, their only recourse was to travel into Egypt and buy grain. When they did this they ended up in the presence of Joseph. Not recognising Joseph, but only seeing this important person in front of them, they did what was required of them and bowed before him.
Thus we see Joseph’s dream being fulfilled in its entirety.
So what does this tell us about dreams?
First of all, just because you have one, doesn’t mean it is suddenly all going to come to pass the next day. Secondly, going by the example above, things may get worse before they get better.
The thing is, when you have a dream you know two things…..
You know where you are right now and …..
you know where you are going to be when the dream manifests.
The thing you don’t know is the route you’re going to take in between. If we knew that piece of information we may decide not to bother with that dream and see if we can up with another one with a simpler route to the finish line.
The thing we learn very quickly is, when you set out on your dream journey the route from start to finish is not a straight line. We can see this process in many areas of our everyday life.
The next time you are standing on a beach, look at the action of the ocean waves. The tide is usually doing one of two things, it is either coming in or going out. But how does it do this, it doesn’t suddenly rush in and you have high tide and then suddenly rush out and you have low tide. Watch the waves, they come up the beach and then recede, then they come up the beach maybe a little bit further and then recede again. This action is repeated until we have high tide and then the opposite motion starts. This is a normal operation of the ocean and we all recognise it as such, in fact, if it happened any different it would be abnormal.
Let’s look at another example. Think about throwing a ball. What direction does it go in before you release it? Backwards, of course! In fact, the further back you can take it, the more impetus you have, and the further forward you can throw it. This is a natural action, it’s just the way it works.
Let’s look at another example from the field of investment and trading.
You can see that the commodity shown in the chart above is in, what we call an uptrend. In other words, the price starts off low at the bottom right and progresses to a higher price at the top right. But look at the path it takes, it doesn’t go in a straight line. It swings up for a period of time, and then we have what is known as a retracement where price comes back and then it rallies again, and extends above where it reached previously. It keeps up this movement until it reaches the top. Can you see the similarity between this and our example of the ocean? This movement is natural, it is just the way everything works.
So when you have a dream and you start off, everything looks like it is going to plan and then, suddenly you run into a problem that halts your forward motion. We call it a ‘drawback’. This is normal, it happens to everyone who makes the effort to move forward. Let’s face it, if a dream automatically came to pass without any drawbacks, everyone who had a dream would be a success.
So, how do we handle these adverse situations? As we said before, there is two things you know. The first one is where you are right now and the second is where your dream is taking you. The secret to success is not to focus on the problem of the moment but to keep your attention strongly focused on the end result. This way you are always facing in the direction of your success and the seeming failures will work themselves out and, in time, you will walk in the full manifestation of your dream which you will find is even greater than you originally envisioned.