Wow! Now This Man Had a Dream!

Daily writing promptWhat brings a tear of joy to your eye?View all responses

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a powerful dream. It changed the way black people are treated in the USA. Another man had a powerful dream around two thousand years earlier. His name was Joseph, and he was engaged to a young woman who told him that she was pregnant while still a virgin, but Joe didn’t buy the woman’s alibi. Instead, he decided to quietly move on.

That’s when Joe had the powerful dream that changed his life and the future of the world. His dream featured an angel appearance. The angel told Joseph 4 things: 1) that his fiancée, Mary, was pregnant by the Holy Spirit, 2) that she will have a son, 3) that Joseph is to name Him Jesus, and 4) that Jesus will save people from their sins.

The remarkable thing about his dream is that Joseph literally believed and obeyed what the angel told him. The supernatural thing about Joe’s dream is that millions of rational people around the world have believed deep in their heart that Jesus Christ was virgin born. I must confess. I believe it (but I didn’t always).

As a teenager I rejected the incredible claims of Christianity like Christ’s virgin birth, His being “Immanuel” which means “God with us,” the miracles that He did, and His rising from the dead after being crucified. However, as a freshman in college I heard people excitedly talking about Jesus like He was alive, and like they had a close personal relationship with Him. As I heard them talking about how real Jesus was to them, something happened deep inside me. It was like a flip switched and Jesus was suddenly real and present with and in me. I’ve never been the same since that moment. In an instant Jesus began to save me (and to this day continues to save me) from my sin and bondage.

Experiencing Jesus as a nonbeliever made me deeply curious about what was happening inside of me. I began to read and devour the Bible that I had rejected as mere fiction. The more I read it the more it burned in my heart. Over the next couple of years, little by little, I gradually began to believe what the Bible teaches because it was working inside of me and transforming my life. Decades later the Bible and God the Holy Spirit have never stopped working in and through me. It’s a wonderful life.

I’m so glad that Mary said yes to the angel who told her that she was going to give birth as a virgin. I’m so glad that Joseph believed and obeyed his dream. I’m so glad that Jesus is “Immanuel” (“God with us,”) and that death wasn’t able to hold Him down. I’m so glad that Christ lives in me, leads me by His Spirit, and is my hope of glory. The risen Jesus frequently brings tears of joy to my eyes.

For more about Martin Luther King’s dream, google: Off the RACE Track book. For more about Joseph’s dream, search for: The Joy of Early Christianity book.

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