Are you willing to wait? part 3

It’s easy for us to live in the never-never land of what we plan to do, tomorrow. We dream about starting a diet, getting a new job, or meeting someone who will sweep us off our feet, or somehow finishing that term paper, or painting the living room, or learning Spanish, or calling on a new client, or going back to college, or any of a thousand other worthwhile ideas. Meanwhile, there is work to be done, much of it tedious, that somehow gets left undone while we are dreaming about what we are going to do “someday.” Unfortunately for most people, someday never comes.
 

In one of her books, Elisabeth Elliot talks about what to do when you hit a wall and feel stuck. When that happens, she advises people to just get up and do the next thing because “there is always a next thing that needs to be done.”  That’s good advice! It may be a small or trivial task, but there is always something that needs to be done: cleaning, writing a note, making a phone call, paying bills, filling an order, putting gas in the car, picking up the kids, taking your pills, saying your prayers, weeding the flowers, or even feeding your dog or taking him for a walk. While you are waiting on God, just do the next thing.
 

Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way: Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A person should do their job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better. If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.” 
 

Think of it this way: because God’s hand was upon him, Joseph was promoted by the captain of the prison to be in charge of all the other prisoners. Because he was faithful, he didn’t shirk his duty when these two new men entered the prison. Little did he know that by taking care of them, he was advancing the cause of his own freedom.

Let me sharpen that point just a little. I said, “Little did he know.” But really, I should have said, “It was impossible for him to know.” 
 

Faithfulness is its own reward. So here is a question for all of us. Will we be faithful where we are, even when life seems to make no sense and all we’re doing is waiting?
 

Be Ready

Genesis 40:5-8, “The king of Egypt’s cupbearer and baker, who were confined in prison, each had a dream. Both had a dream on the same night, and each dream had its own meaning. 6 When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they looked distraught. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so sad today?” 8 “We had dreams,” they said to him, “but there is no one to interpret them.” Then Joseph said to them, “Don’t interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams” CSB.
 

There are dreams all through Joseph’s story. First, he has dreams (Genesis 37) then, these two men have them (Genesis 40) then, Pharaoh will have a two-part  dream (Genesis 41). In each case, the dreams prove crucial in Joseph’s life. In Genesis 37, Joseph has dreams that he shares with his brothers, provoking their hatred of him even more. But in Genesis 40, the baker and cupbearer turn to Joseph to help them interpret their dreams. 

Continued