COLUMN: What's your vision for the new year?

 For the vision … will surely come.”

Between your dream and its fulfillment you’ll be tested. You’ll face some of the same things Joseph faced like:

• The faith test. He had to maintain his faith in a hostile environment and believe in a dream nobody else believed in. He had no “dreamers support network.” He had to stand alone.

• The patience test. His dream wouldn’t happen quickly. A boy at its conception, he’d be a mature man before its fulfillment. Every day he’d have to hold onto it or risk losing it. Patience isn’t just hoping things work out; it’s persevering and believing what God said.

“Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.” Hebrews 10:36

• The strength test. For a while Joseph’s circumstances made the critics appear to be right. He was, after all, in a pit, frightened, alone, in a strange land without family or friends, in prison with an unearned criminal record. He must remain strong in his conviction that his dream was really from God.

• The focus test. With enough emotional baggage to derail a freight train – sibling resentment, abandonment, false accusation and compound losses – he must constantly control his focus. Fixating on his problems would have produced disillusionment. Maintaining dream focus would be his salvation.

• The readiness test. When God finally began opening doors he had to be ready for action. Discouragement or negative thinking would blind him to opportunity.

So he kept his spirit and his gifts honed, took every occasion to use them and watched as God turned his vision into reality.