The Bible says in Psalm 105, it says until the time His word came the word of the Lord tried him, so although he had a dream there was a timing for the dream to be fulfilled and there was a preparation before that timing came about. You can delay the timing. You can miss your timing, but you have to be doing something before your dream is fulfilled. You want to dream to be a doctor? Well you've got probably five to seven years of study and hard work. Then the dream is fulfilled, so whatever you want to do in life, life teaches us have the dream, get a plan, stick with the plan and become big enough to fill that dream. Most people don't get big enough on the inside to fill the dream that God has.
God's dream is a big dream. God's dream for your life is bigger than you can imagine, greater than you can imagine, so the problem is we're stuck with thinking too small and we're stuck with being too small and God wants to expand us. So when you start to get a dream in your life and begin to start to pray that dream into being and plan towards it, believe me you are going to have to grow into it, become big enough to fill the dream. The problem is not the dream coming about; mostly the problem is you getting big enough to fill it.
So you get a businessman and they want a great big business and there's millions coming in - but are you big enough to run such a one? No. So you have to grow, you have to prepare. So people have the dream. You've got to grow - YOU have to grow into the dream and God always grows people into things. What you're facing right now is God trying to get you grow into your dream or into His dream for you. We don't always see it that way.
So we do know the story of Joseph. He had a great dream, we're excited about the great dream, we identify with him being told off and rebuked and put down for his dream. But often we don't realise is that he actually did something to fulfil the dream. He did something. He held a promise of God and grew through the difficult circumstances God took him through to prepare him. Let me give it to you quickly - in Genesis, Chapter 39, Verse 1. Joseph had gone down to Egypt. He was a slave in Egypt. He was stripped naked, put up on a box, sold in an auction to the highest bidder. That's not very nice. But he had a dream and he never let go his dream and so what happens, it says here the Lord was with Joseph. He was a successful man in the house of his master the Egyptian and the master saw the Lord was with him. The Lord made all he did to prosper in his hands and Joseph found favour in his sight and served him and made him an overseer of the house. In Verse 5, it came from that time that he made him overseer of the house and all that he had. The Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake and the blessing of the Lord was on all he had in the house and all he had in the field.
Now we could preach a message just on your role in the workplace off that one verse. The Egyptian representing an unsaved person and the Christian, being a source of blessing to the business, a source of blessing to the community. God blessed the Egyptian because Joseph was there. Think about that. Now that didn't just happen by chance either - oh, well that was Joseph. Notice Joseph did some things, so here's some of the things. See Joseph was there but Joseph was in the palace. A little bit later he's in the prison. Now here's the thing; he's in a palace and he prospers; he's in a prison and he prospers and he is learning how to manage people at kingly level, governmental level and he's learning how to deal with the lowest of society, the scum who were in prison. In both places he prospers. That's no accident, but he is learning. He's having to learn how to manage people at every strata of society, so God gives him a dose at the top and a dose at the bottom and now he's equipped to be able to manage and lead a country of people at every level, socially and financially in society. His prison experience, his Egyptian experience and prison experience was all part of preparing for the dream that God had for him.