In the Old Testament part of the Bible, there was a young man named Joseph whom God had special plans for. He started out with positive emotions of being loved by his father because his father actually considered him his favorite. However, when parents have favorites, this creates real problems with the other children. Plus, Joseph didn’t handle his relationship with his brothers well. He did what spoiled brats tend to do; he tattled on his brothers and tried to get them into trouble. This is where things started going down hill for Joseph. Jesus wants to use Joseph’s life as an example of how to handle bad situations that tend to push people into emotional crisis. Joseph’s emotional crisis was caused by relationships; and, that may not be the major cause of your issue. But, the cause of your crisis isn’t as important as how you handle the emotional crisis in YOUR life. So, Joseph’s life is picked up in Genesis chapter 37, verse 2 (Gen 37:2) when he was seventeen.

Gen 37:2-4 (NIV) This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

The damage in your heart can often start out because of bad relationships; however, it can also be caused by life struggles, finances, physical conditions, circumstances, loss of a loved one, and spiritual issues. These things cause your heart to be overwhelmed, have doubts, experience fears, feel depressed, enter into hopelessness, get frustrated, lash out in anger, and many other emotional reactions. They cause damage to your heart because they are bad things happening to you and in you. You can especially be damaged emotionally if a lot of bad things happen to you all at once or one right after another. This challenges your faith, trust, reliance, and dependency on God.

Gen 37:5 (NIV) Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. Joseph’s brothers were already mad at him; yet he tried to impress them with a dream that God gave him; everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes is doesn’t matter how hard you try to win people over or try to make your life better, it seems like all your efforts backfire on you. When things go from bad to worse, it can drain your hope, faith, and positive expectations. When you are already depressed or frustrated, other negative things can really take you down or make you more frustrated. But, there was a work of God that had shined a special light into Joseph’s life. Two dreams were going to reveal something extremely important to Joseph. His life was going to have many setbacks that would try to destroy him. But, two dreams were given to him so he could hold on to them for the rest of his life.

You may not remember it; but, there is something God has spoken to you at some point in your life. Pray and ask Him to help you go back to a time when God caused you to feel special. He told you that you were going to be a special person. He helped you feel like there was something you were going to do that was important. This “dream” He gave you may be crushed and downplayed; but, it was real and true for your future. God has VERY special plans for you; He has a dream that He wants you to embrace. He gave it to you for you to hold onto so as to help you face this time of struggle with life. It doesn’t matter what kind of diagnoses, messages, or evaluations you are getting from pain, circumstances, or people; God’s message to you is the only message that counts. Spend some time with Jesus, asking Him to show you how important you are to Him; let Him help you dream again.

Gen 37:6-8 (NIV) He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.” His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

Joseph’s life’s problems were forming through relationships; he was failing to realize that he was creating major hostility against himself. His brother’s attitudes were growing against him no matter how much Joseph tried to help them see his value. His life-struggles were just as hard on him as your struggles with life are on you. He was experiencing major pain from them just like you are.

Sometimes you can try to impress others by bragging on yourself. Since those around you don’t seem to be impressed, you can start trying to point out your own qualities. However, the more you brag, the less people want to be around you. Bragging comes across as you saying that you are better than them. That doesn’t mean that, that was your message; you were just trying to help them like you. But, it seems to cause people to pull away from you more. If you do what you think should help you have more friends and it makes things worse, that is very hurtful and confusing to you. When you come to God with pride, it hurts your relationship with Him also. However, Jesus has a way for you to develop friendhips with people and with God through a very different system.

Gen 37:9-11 (NIV) Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. The important reason God was giving Joseph these two dreams was for his future. God wanted Joseph to have these promises buried inside his heart. God didn’t give them to him so he could try to impress people; He gave them to him so he could battle his life-problem like you are battling your issue with life.

In Genesis 37:12-17, Joseph headed into God’s future plans for his life. They were going to be challenging life-classes that would try to make him feel so overwhelmed that Joseph would give up on life. Why would God design a difficult life that had struggles, problems, and emotionally challenging aspects to them? You may not be able to fully embrace the reasons for what you are going through; but, you are very important to some people who are going to need your help. Right now it probably seems like you aren’t even able to be helped yourself. But, God is going to lead you through this issue with life and bring you out victorious. That in itself is wonderful; but, it is going to also help you learn some principles that are going to be life-saving to other people you meet. God had plans for Joseph that needed some very special training; they were very difficult assignments; but, they took him to a wonderful place where large quantities of people were blessed through him.

Your problem with life hasn’t entered into your life so as to destroy you; it is actually going to be something you and Jesus will use to help you win. If you don’t have any struggles, then you can’t win any battles. All successful athletes, successful professionals, successful parents, and successful marriages have faced major difficulties. They just did what it took to win over them. Jesus wants to empower you to win and win in a powerful way. Everyone around you is suffering with some kind of struggle in their life too. Like you, they can try to handle it alone, through other humans, or through supernatural power which comes by turning to Jesus.