Once in a while I begin to doubt, and I begin to convince myself that He never said that last summer--I am just having delusions of grandeur. However, He has reminded me just this past couple of weeks that Moses and Joseph had to wait many years before fulfilling their calling. If you read Exodus 2:11-12 carefully, you will see that God gave Moses a heart for "his own people" at forty years old (Acts 7:23). However, instead of praying passionately to God when he witnessed the Israelites' oppression, he passionately took matters into his own hands and murdered the cruel Egyptian. God gave him the heart for his people forty years before God opened the door for him to give vent to his passion and complete God's calling on his life. Moses had to carry that burden by himself for forty years, and the entire time he did not understand that this burden was God-instilled. Even when God called him at the burning bush, he did not embrace his calling wholeheartedly, but recited a litany of excuses in an attempt to sidestep his destiny. I'm sure at some point during Moses' life, God pointed out the connection between his God-instilled compassion for his people forty years earlier and God's call to lead them out of slavery into the Promised Land.
The same applies to Joseph. Cruelly treated by his siblings (except Benjamin), he was an outcast and unjustly sold into slavery by his own brothers. However, before being sold into slavery, he had two significant dreams which lost their luster over the next several years. In both of his dreams his brothers were bowing down to him, something which would obviously seem ludicrous given that he was the eleventh of twelve brothers. On the contrary, he should have been bowing down to them. After being sold into slavery, I believe that he eventually forgot about those dreams completely because Genesis 42:9 says "Then Joseph remembered the dreams which he had dreamed about them ..." [The brothers went to Egypt to buy grain during the famine.] The word "remembered" implies that he had forgotten about those dreams. Twenty-two years had elapsed from the time that Joseph first had the dreams as a seventeen-year-old and when he first saw his brothers in Egypt. He had to wait twenty-two years to fulfill his destiny of saving his people during the severe famine.
I am definitely not expecting to have to wait that long, but God is gently reassuring me that He has more for me than what I can see right now with my human eyes. I do have so many dreams and hopes for future ministry opportunities. I am currently asking Him to show me which ones are HIS dreams for me, and which ones are my own fleshly desires. Of course, I am asking Him to remove any dreams that do not originate with Him.
I am so curious when and how He will open doors! :)
How about you? Have you been in a season of waiting and got to see the Master lead you down the paths He has chosen for you? Or maybe, like me, you're in a season of waiting right now.
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