Dreamers have dreams

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I wonder what Joseph would have felt when he dreamed those dreams, to be able to see God's vision and purpose for him in his dreams. It represents a vision, an end-goal and Joseph was to screw these all up in the beginning by proclaiming his dreams tactlessly in front of his family members. But would he be better off if he had not had the dreams? Nay. Remember what he said to his brothers:
And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. - Genesis 45:5-7
Maybe badly executed but certainly fall within God's vision for him. I mention this because I was thinking that we ought to have a dream. We got to resonate with Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous phrase, 'I have a dream'. He has a dream, and that particular speech was moved more by the Spirit than via merticulous preparation. And it changed the American conscience eventually.

And so I was thinking about my own dream, and assessing if those are God-driven, or self-driven. I have a few dreams:

1. Earning big bucks
2. Living in a landed castle (or even better, a floating one)
3. Rule the world (Pinky and the Brain)

An idiot would have been able to tell that these are self-motivated dreams. Of course, the third one is always the best excuse for me to become a super villian... Jokes aside, I would think that over the times, some dreams are indeed fuelled by passion and burden:

a. Venturing into the realm of apologetics to bridge the mind-heart gap
b. Plant a church planting church

With regards to (a), I was even thinking and toying around the idea of venturing into academic realm and bringing apologetics into Singapore universities (think I mentioned these a lot in my previous posts last time) to show that there is no disparate between God and all the rest of our disciplines in universities, that theology is a viable option in explaining certain things. I remember what I heard Ravi Zacharias says that university students are crying out for help in the face of university professors who slam the door against religions and proposed all sort of weird theories to justify their beliefs instead. I have seen this happening in NUS before, so it is not unique to America I believe.

Nonetheless, dreams have to be fueled and driven by the Holy Spirit. Man-made dreams will forever remain as man-made dreams, even if it comes to fulfillment but a dream driven by God can go a long way. Just think about Joseph.

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