Ryan Swanson: Hello, welcome back to this Satisfied program here on the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Ryan Swanson, and we are continuing in our series on emotional impurity. I think this is episode number six, and we took a little bit of a turn, a transition last time, started discussing the misconceptions of how God wants to lead you specifically towards a spouse. Last month, we discussed the soul hole, is what it was called. The misconception that God is going to lead you through your eyes or through someone else’s eyes that caught your eye — a crucial discussion in emotional purity. So, if you did not listen to that, go ahead and do so. 

Today we are moving on to another misconception, and this is so important. Honestly, this is one that my wife and I have talked through quite often, quite a bit, in trying to help different ones and seeing the damage it can cause when we fall prey to this misconception. This one is specifically about dreams. It’s about stories. It’s about fairy tales. This misconception is that God is going to write you the story you always dreamed of. Now, when we discuss dreams and visions as far as God giving you a vision for your life or some kind of early convincement about His will for you, there definitely can be some positive things there. It’s not that it’s all negative, but there are some definite dangers that come with that. So, in order to discuss the principles that we should follow when God gives us a glimpse, or when we think God is giving us a glimpse of how our future may be, we need to compare notes a little bit with another character in the Bible who also had a dream. 

I want us to think of Joseph a little bit. Joseph, I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but, much of his life was characterized by dreams. His dreams — others’ dreams. When he was young, probably a teenager, he had a dream that he was elevated to a position above his parents and brothers, and that many others were looking to him for sustenance, and it was a dream that clearly was from God because it played out exactly how he saw it in the dream. However, the circumstances from when Joseph first dreamed that dream and when it finally played out so many years later, were not anything like the circumstances that Joseph would have imagined. 

So, the first principle here, as we look at Joseph quickly and discuss how he handled this dream, the God-given vision for his life, how he handled this. Initially, when he was so focused on his dream that he was telling his brothers and parents about it, how did that go for him? How much closer did he get to seeing that dream fulfilled as long as he was so focused on it? Well, not at all. He wasn’t getting anywhere. In fact, it seemed like it was just getting worse and worse the more he brought up those dreams and the more he focused on it. God was doing something; God was writing something. But you know what we can think? If this dream is from God, then I have all the right in the world to focus on it every day of my life, to be manipulating to make sure this happens. And the problem is, Joseph never could have planned the circumstances to make such a dream come true — he never could have done it. And the more we get our fingers involved in trying to write our story, the sooner it comes crashing down, the more tarnished it becomes —tainted by our finiteness and sinful nature. Our flesh gets all over, it becomes nasty, disgusting, when we try to write our own story. 

Many of us try to take God’s dreams and God’s visions that He’s given for us and God’s promises and then write them our own way. And what Joseph found and what his whole, the whole life of Joseph presents this fundamental truth, is that God writes your story when you put down the pen. Now, probably all of us would agree with that statement, and we would even go as far as trying it, but we have not committed to it. We’ll go as far as when we think God might, maybe he’s answering this way, okay, I can start to see, He’s writing this, yes, and then we think God drops the ball. And so, we pick up the pen and start from where we think He left off. And it doesn’t work that way. 

Okay, just picture Joseph’s story, this is unbelievable. At a young age, he’s given favor from his father. He gets a coat of many colors. It looks like he’s rising up. Maybe this is how he’s going to take his position, just by the elevated status within the favor amongst his brothers. And this is how it’s gonna happen. And then, oh, that coat is ripped away from him. Oh, he’s thrown down into a pit, left to die. Hmm. And Joseph wonders, is God writing my story still? And then at that point, He hears footsteps coming to the edge of the pit. His brothers then throw down a rope and they start pulling him up out of the pit. And Joseph’s thinking, oh, there, God picked up the pen. He’s starting to write, I’m gonna be delivered. 

And then he’s sold into slavery. And Joseph again has to ask, is God done? Did he put the pen down? Does he need my help? Now he’s sold into slavery, but he’s in Potiphar’s house, starts working his way up the chain. He’s given control over everything in Potiphar’s house. Joseph has to be thinking, this is it — this is the elevated status. I am almost there. This dream is just around the corner from being fulfilled, And then he’s accused of adultery and thrown in jail. Did God put down the pen? Is he done? Do I have to now take up from here? And then there’s a couple of men in there — the butler and the baker. They come with a couple of dreams. 

Now we’re gonna discuss a little bit more about these dreams, but let’s just look at the facts first. He interprets these dreams for these two men. Joseph at first, sees this as, this could be it. This is my opportunity. And so, he tells the butler who’s going to go back and stand before Pharaoh. He says, hey, remember me, tell him about me. And just for a moment there, Joseph picks up the pen. He picks up the pen and says, you know what? God left me in jail. He’s thinking, you know what, when God was writing, I got thrown into a pit. When God was writing, I got sold into slavery. When God was writing, I got thrown into jail. Now let me pick up the pen just for a moment and see if I can make something of this opportunity. 

And what happens? Two years go by, Joseph sits in that jail. Two years while that butler forgot about him. You know, I have to wonder if God actually was planning to use that butler, if that butler was going to go right into Pharaoh and tell him all about Joseph. And that Joseph would have right then and there been freed. Maybe God gave him a couple years just to make sure he learned that lesson. Don’t pick up the pen. At the point when the butler finally remembers, when Pharaoh has that dream and the butler says, “Oh, I know someone who can handle that. I forgot about this guy.” And so they send for Joseph and Joseph comes before Pharaoh. And you know what Joseph did not have in his hand? A pen. No, he left that behind. He stands before Pharaoh and instead of using the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream as a pawn to get somehow closer and in favor with Pharaoh, and to try to manipulate his way into that status, into that authority that he dreamed of so many years ago, instead of picking up that pen, and trying to explain to Pharaoh what an asset he could be to the kingdom, Joseph just says, “there’s nothing in me. It’s not of me.” He says, “if anything good comes from this conversation, it’s from God. It’s not of me.” 

I was discussing this story with my dad years ago and he says, you know Ryan, I can almost picture Joseph as soon as he gave the interpretation, just turning to walk right back to the jail. He wasn’t there to try to write his story. He had learned what it meant to trust God. And then, God continues to write. Finally, he sees in a way that never otherwise could have been possible. He sees God finish the story. 

But you know what we like to do? We like to let God decide the ending, give us a glimpse of it, and then we’ll write everything in between. We make the steps, we make the rules, and hope God can somehow clean up the mess in the end. So before we apply this completely, let’s hit a little closer to home. 

What happens every time you, as a single individual, hear someone else’s story? You hear a story how a couple of people got together. Maybe it’s a beautiful story. Maybe it’s a story of high school sweethearts. Maybe it’s a story how one of them just woke up with the other person’s name on their mind. And that was the end. Maybe it’s a story of how a certain name was confirmed in someone’s devotions, reading your Bible, there’s a verse that stuck out, or maybe it was just in prayer that a certain name came across their mind and was confirmed, never to be doubted again. You ever heard these stories? 

What you imagine as your dream courtship is very likely the conglomeration of so many stories that you’ve heard. It’s not that the stories are wrong, incorrect, or ill-represented. It’s not that they’re not being honest. But they’re not your stories. Because we like how they look, we like how they ended. We like how they sounded. We like how other people responded to them. We want those stories for ourselves. And so, without even thinking of it, sometimes we take what we like from all these stories and mix it up into one and that’s exactly what we want to happen. And because it’s good, ad because it’s pure, this must be what God has for me. He’s gonna give me a verse just like He gave Him a verse. He’s gonna speak to me through prayer just like He spoke to him through prayer. She’s gonna catch my eye just like she caught his eye. Their names are gonna rhyme just like this other couple’s names rhyme. I don’t know what it is, but we come up with all these things that just because it’s great, it’s cute, it’s awesome, we saw it somewhere else, we like it, and so we want that to be ours. 

We get a glimpse of what we like and we say, okay God, thanks for that, now hand me the pen. God, you’re writing a little slower than I can. Hand me the pen. God, you’re writing a little more in there than I think is necessary. Let’s cut right to the chase here, God. Why don’t you hand me the pen? There are so many ways in which you could take someone else’s story and overlay it on your life and totally mess up what God is trying to write. I can’t tell you what parts of someone else’s story are going to mirror your own, but I can tell you, yours is gonna be different. There is not one story that you’re going to hear that is gonna be just like yours. 

So what in the world then? Are we just giving up on it? Are we just sitting back and don’t worry about it? When God seems to give us some sort of vision, some sort of dream about what would be right in a marriage someday, when God gives us a desire for a beautiful, a pure, an unscarred relationship without any regrets — can we not trust Him for that? You absolutely can. Here’s the thing, Joseph never gave up on his dream. Now, I don’t think he ever specifically mentions it again, but he never gave up on it. I think it was in the back of his mind the whole time. I think he was trusting God to get to that point, that vision of where God gave him as a boy. You know how I think that? Picture Joseph in jail when the butler and the baker come to him and they begin to wax eloquent about this divine vision that they’ve received, and they’re disturbed by it because they know there’s some kind of meaning. Why didn’t Joseph just say, “oh guys, yeah, I know it may seem like God’s trying to tell you something through your dream, but, yeah, if you knew what God told me, you wouldn’t worry about it. Oh, if you knew my dream and… look where I’m at now, you wouldn’t worry about it.” 

When Joseph stood before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh explains this extravagant dream that he had, disturbed by it because he thought there must be some kind of significance — something that God is trying to tell him through it, why didn’t Joseph just say, oh yeah, I had a dream once? “Let me tell you, Pharaoh, you think you’re really something. You should have seen my dream. But alas, look at me. An innocent man stuck in jail for over two years now. Yeah, Pharaoh, I’d just forget about it. Go back to sleep. God’s not trying to say anything to you.” Now, why didn’t Joseph say that? Because he still believed in dreams. Joseph was still convinced that God had spoken to him. He hadn’t given up on it. 

The problem is not that God wants to lead you and give you a dream, and that God may have spoken to you, may have. He may have, that’s not the problem. The problem comes when we think we know how we can make it happen. And so we try to seek out the right method — the right formula to write God’s story and it just won’t work. 

As we conclude here, Genesis chapter 24 is the story of how Abraham sought out a bride for his son, Isaac. A beautiful, beautiful story. But one thing I love about this story is that you simply cannot turn it into a formula. You can’t call this a method. You can’t put this in steps because it was never meant to be that. No one’s going to say, today you need to have your dad get a servant and send him out to find you a wife, because that’s what happened in Genesis 24. Let alone, are you going to send that servant out to your distant relatives to find you a wife. Nor are you going to tell this servant to take camels with him and just ask a bunch of random girls if they’ll water the camels and then you’ll know. That’s the one, because that’s how it happened in Genesis 24. No, that’s not how God works. What happens in Genesis 24 is a beautiful thing. But it’s not a method. The key in what could summarize Genesis chapter 24 is when the servant says, I being in the way, the Lord led me. What a summary of the principles in that story. Of someone who was on task, of someone who didn’t lose sight of what God wanted to do and what God had for him, of someone who was surrendered to do it in whatever way God led him, of someone who is surrendered to let God completely write the story. And because Isaac is content to wait by a well to put down the pen, and because this servant is content to wait by another well, to wait on a miracle to happen, and put down the pen, then God is able to pick it up and start writing. “I being in the way the Lord led me.” 

A few years ago I read Psalm 29:2, “Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” And I thought, man, if there’s anything I want to happen at my wedding someday, I want God to be worshiped in beauty. I want it to be all about Him. I want it to be so beautiful. And according to this verse, if it’s gonna be beautiful, then it has to be God. It’s His beauty of holiness. But the other thing the verse says is, is to give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name. Oh, I want God to be glorified. I want Him to be worshiped in the beauty of holiness at my wedding. But in order for that to happen, according to this verse, then everything that’s seen has to be due to Him. It has to be because of Him. If my marriage is going to glorify God, it has to be because He wrote it, because it’s Him, because He’s the author. 

Look, when you get to your wedding someday, and the whole story is about how God gave you a vision and then in so many ways how you manipulated to make sure it happened. I don’t care how many people are oooing and awing and think it’s so cute. God’s not getting any glory. And when God’s not getting glory, it’s not going to be beautiful. It’s not going to be holy. God will not be glorified through that marriage as long as it’s due unto you. 

Who’s writing your story? Is God the author? Is He holding the pen? Maybe He’s taken longer than what you thought. Maybe there’s a few more paragraphs in there. Maybe a few more scenes than what you imagined. Maybe even a few plot twists. But is God writing your story? Is He holding the pen? Don’t take it from Him. Don’t take it. As that servant said, I being in the way, the Lord led me. Stay in the way. Stay on mission as we’ve discussed. And don’t stop trusting God for that beautiful thing He wants to give you, but leave the pen in His hand. 

When you go to other weddings and you hear the stories about how God led them, when someone shares with you the circumstances by which they met and came together, rejoice with them, give God the glory for how He led them and how He wrote their story. But remember, that story is simply not yours. And don’t try to take little pieces of it, “oh, but I like that part and I think this is cute and oh, that would just be perfect if I could say that by the end of it.” No, don’t focus on that. There’s one thing you need to be able to say by the end of it. There’s one thing. You need to be able to stand at your wedding and say “everything you see is because of God.” If you can say that, I promise you it will be beautiful. Everything will be beautiful. 

When I read Psalm 29:2, I prayed very specifically that God would somehow write our story in such a way that would be so impossible; that no one would be able to say, oh, Ryan did that, or oh, Stephanie did that, but that everybody would know it was God. If you know our story at all, you know that God really had his work cut out for him to make that beautiful, because I had messed it up pretty good. But we’ve had so many people who have come to us after hearing the story and just saying, that is so beautiful, what God did. And we can just praise the Lord that he was holding the pen long enough to write something beautiful. Many of you are looking at a story right now that’s played out so far in your life and it just… ugh… you think it’s a mess? It’s an absolute mess. And the temptation is, to just keep writing yourself and maybe I can clean it up this way. Maybe this kind of ending to the story would work out or maybe this one. It still wouldn’t be too bad if this happened. 

No, it’s time to put down the pen and commit to God that He can take it, He can have it for as long as He wants to write whatever He wants. You’re never taking it back. It’s His. Because when He’s the author, He can take any mess and make it beautiful. He hath made everything beautiful in its time. God can do that, and only God can do that. 

This is a very important truth, an important episode. Honestly, it’s been one of the harder ones to articulate and find the right balance of truth to present it. I trust that you won’t go out the wrong window on this, but that it’s been helpful to you. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out at satisfied@theegeneration.org.

Next week we’ll be looking at a misconception concerning prayer. How do I pray correctly for God’s will in this area? But until then, seek to find a place of rest in your Savior, a place to be in the way so that God can lead you and so that you can be less gratified and more satisfied with Jesus Christ. else needs to take their own step out of the boat. To share your testimony, please visit thegeneration.org.