Have you ever been "sure" that God had spoken to you with a special plan for your life? Then suddenly every thing that COULD go wrong did? You thing that if it had really been God's plan everything would have gone smoothly and worked out right, first time through! Wrong. Let's look at Joseph, the favored son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham. God had made Abraham a promise that his children would be more than the number of stars in the heavens. There was a famine coming to the land and God had a plan to save this special family, in the center of that plan was the handsome young man, Joseph. Jacob loved Joseph, son of Rachel, so much. All the other brothers knew it and already resented Joseph, who continued telling them his dreams of grandeur, and when Jacob made Joseph a beautiful mulit-colored coat for him to strut around in, it only made it worse. They devised a plan to get rid of him, once and for all. They were going to kill him, but the eldest son had another idea. They threw "little Joe" into a deep pit and waited until a caravan of camel riding traders came along, and sold him. He went to a master that had a wife with a roving eye and she wanted Joseph for herself! When he refused her advances she lied and said that he had raped her! SO here's the plan, first the pit, then slavery, then prison. but all of those events brought him to the very place he needed to be for his future plan. His dreams and interpretations finally paid off. He told the Pharaoh what a disturbing dream meant and was given his "get out of jail free" card! He became second in command only to the Pharaoh, even wore his signet ring! When the fore-told famine came, hos brothers arrived in Egypt looking for provisions to keep them from starving! They didn't recognize that the man who had the power to give or refuse food for them was the brother they had sold so long ago. End of story is that Joseph was re-united with his baby brother Benjamin and his aged father. He moved them all to Egypt so that he could provide for them. Seems that was a long way around to the plan! Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thought I have of you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil. to give you a future and a hope. I have often heard mother tell the story of how she was desparately in love with a young preacher. Perfect match for a preacher's daughter! She knew she would be the perfect wife for him, that is until one day when her dad came home from a trip and announced to the family, "Guess who got married this week?" When he called that young preacher's name, mother went into the bathroom and cried her heart out. She felt that she had been forsaken by God and now she would never love another. Time went on and the next summer she found the picture of a firey young evangelist, who lived three thousand miles away! She fell in love then and there and knew this really WAS the man she would marry. A few weeks later at a convention in Alabama they met, were together for three hours, married three months later and that was 67 years ago this past New Year's Eve! Think God had a plan? Yes, she just tried to rush it! The other man was un-faithful to his wife, became an alcoholic, died in disgrace without pulpit or congregation. Whatever your dreams or plans for the future are, put them in the hand of God and trust Him to bring them to pass, you can't go wrong "praying the plan" of God DOn't be discouraged, do give up, He has a "future and a hope" just for you!

Be blessed, pray, go out and buy yourself a multi-colored coat!