Today, I am thinking about the story of Joseph. This is Joseph the son of Jacob not the father of Jesus. Joseph’s life story reads like a dream and one can’t help but be inspired by him. So much to the man but only one part I’d like to focus on. We are told that Jacob loved his son Joseph more than the brothers. Jacob made Joseph a coat of many colors. This is where my madness comes in. Let me repeat that: Jacob made Joseph a coat of many colors. Without boring you with details, the coat had many colors indeed!
As far as I can say, that coat of Joseph’s looked like a hundred pieces of cloth put together. It basically looked like a quilt. These days quilts are made from intentionally cut-up pieces but back then it was to save whatever pieces of cloth that were left over after sewing.
These are pieces that half the time people throw away but it seems Jacob found some use for them. He made a coat of many colors for Joseph and when Joseph’s brothers saw the finished product, they were very jealous and upset. Why were they jealous though? After all, this was a coat made from unwanted cut-offs, it was probably not properly aligned. I swear!
I don’t think it was the coat with many colors that drove the brothers crazy with envy. I think it was in the manner that Joseph wore the coat. To him, the coat was a never been seen, never been heard nor dreamed of. And when Joseph tried the coat on, he knew he was definitely going somewhere in his life.
He didn’t pay attention to the patchwork because in his eyes this was a complete, beautiful coat. In the story the brothers attacked him and stripped him of his coat, they probably tried the coat on before realizing it was not a fit. In one of the movies I watched, at the end when Joseph is reunited with his family, they brought the very same coat back to him.
Your dreams are real- no matter how cut up they may be, they are real. They are bright with many, many colors, they may be scattered at the moment but they are waiting for you to turn them into a beautiful coat. Go ahead and piece them together, wear them with pride enough to make everyone notice. Yes, some will get jealous and think they deserve your dazzling coat of many colors. They might even grab it to try it on but it won’t fit them because it was custom-made just for you. Maybe you don’t have a coat yet but if you go look into your ‘dream basket’, you will find pieces of your forgotten dreams waiting for you to put them together to make a coat as beautiful as Joseph’s.
(C): Jide Olu @ obmeet.com
