God loves dreamers. They’re the people who see His purposes and prophesy His plans. Unfortunately, they’re also the people most often misunderstood and unappreciated. Just think about your dreams and desires. Most people don’t share your goals or aspirations and the bigger and more daring those dreams are, the more ridiculed you are. Yet, dreamers are the people whom God uses to bring forth His masterpieces and designs. Joseph was such a dreamer.

Although Joseph was a favorite of his father and hated by his brothers, something very unique took place in that spoiled little kid when he was a young teenager. God began to place in Joseph’s heart and mind a passion for greatness. The great Jehovah began to raise up in that scrawny, pampered, little kid a purpose and plan to save Joseph’s people and to change his world.

Too bad nobody understood those dreams. Look at what Joseph’s brothers had to say about his visions. Genesis 37:19 reads, “And they [Joseph’s brothers] said to one another, Behold this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit . . . And we shall see what will become of his dreams” (KJV). His brothers hated him for his dreams! They hated him so much so that they wanted to kill him. They seemed to be saying, “Ha! He thinks he’s so high and mighty for dreaming such big dreams. Well, we’ll show him! We will see what will become of his foolish dreams.”

There will always be people who hate you for your dreams. Most of the time they won’t be your unsaved friends or schoolteachers. More than likely, they’ll be the most religious among you—your youth group, your family, and your best friends. Joseph wasn’t attacked by outsiders for his visions of greatness, he was condemned by his own people—people who were supposed to have the heart and mind of God. I call these the dream slayers.

They’ll sometimes hate you because you have seen God’s purpose in your life in a different light than they have. Your dreams take the focus off of them and force their world to revolve around something other than their soap opera of a life. They’ll manipulate you, make fun of you, and try to make you believe your dream is impossible. Don’t believe the dream slayers. God’s got a plan for those dreams.

Oh, but wait a second! Joseph was captured and put in a pit. He was sold into slavery and taken from everything he’d ever known. It seems those dream slayers accomplished what they set out to do, right? Not so. You see, you can get rid of the dreamer, but once the dream has been birthed, it’s out there. And it can never be undreamed or untold.

Even though Joseph was torn from his family, and most certainly placed in an undeserving situation, God was working with those dreams by turning Joseph’s terrible situations around for his good. In fact, God used the very thing that the dream slayers tried to use to annihilate Joseph’s dream, to bring it to pass.

Your dreams, young lady. Your prayers, young man. Your visions are in the hands of God, not man. And even when you’ve forgotten them, God remembers. The very weapon your dream slayers are using to abolish your dreams, God just might use to establish them, just as He did with Joseph.

Genesis 50:19-20 tells us, “And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me: but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive” (KJV).

Hold onto your dreams, whether they are of a career, a ministry, a family member coming into Truth, or the salvation of a nation. God has given you those dreams for a purpose. He’s going to use you and your dream to save many people from burning in Hell. Because the good work that God has begun in you, He will fulfill it. No matter what the dream slayers say.