The air was thick with anticipation as the young couple stood before me, hands intertwined, eyes glistening with the promise of tomorrow. I had performed dozens of wedding ceremonies before, but this one felt different. For eighteen months, I had carried a message in my heart—a message about dreams and the painful isolation that comes when we have no one to share them with. The Lord had asked me to wait, and wait I did, though I couldn’t understand why.
Until that moment.
Looking at the radiant faces before me—two young hearts committed not just to marriage but to ministry together—I suddenly understood. This was the place. This was the time. This message wasn’t meant for a Sunday morning sermon but for this sacred union of dreamers.
The Dreamer Who Dreamed Alone
Joseph was just seventeen when the dreams began. Vibrant, mysterious visions that stirred his young heart. Sheaves of wheat bowing. Stars arranging themselves in peculiar homage.
“Listen to this dream I had,” he eagerly told his brothers in Genesis 37:6-7. “We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
Can you see him? Eyes wide with wonder, hands gesturing excitedly as he describes the night vision that had awakened him. Perhaps he expected his brothers to marvel alongside him, to ponder with him what these dreams might mean.
Instead, Scripture tells us, “They hated him all the more because of his dream” (Genesis 37:8).
Joseph’s dreams were prophetic glimpses of his future, divine whispers of a purpose that would eventually save nations. But in the moment of their revelation, they became walls instead of bridges. His brothers’ hearts hardened with each new dream he shared, their envy festering until eventually, they sold him into slavery.
For years afterward, Joseph carried his dreams alone. Through the dark nights in Potiphar’s house. Through the forgotten years in Pharaoh’s prison. No one to listen. No one to believe. No one to say, “I see the dreamer in you, and I believe.”
The Pain of Solitary Visions
Have you ever felt it? That burning inside when God plants a vision so vivid, so compelling that it consumes your thoughts—yet when you try to give it voice, you’re met with blank stares or outright rejection? Dreams weren’t meant to be solitary burdens. They’re too heavy for one heart to carry alone.
All around us walk people with dreams locked inside, visions they’ve stopped sharing because the pain of dismissal cuts too deep. The young woman who senses a call to unconventional ministry but has been told repeatedly to be “realistic.” The middle-aged man with an idea that could transform his community, but who’s been laughed out of too many rooms. The child whose imagination sees possibilities adults have long forgotten how to see.
They’ve learned to dream quietly, to hope secretly. Some have stopped dreaming altogether.
What if Joseph had someone who listened? What if, instead of jealousy, his brothers had responded with, “Tell us more”? What if they had dreamed alongside him rather than against him?
The Sacred Partnership of Shared Dreams
Standing before that young couple, I finally released the words I’d carried for eighteen months: “Joseph was a dreamer, but his dreams were not well received. I want to encourage the two of you to do life together. Hope together. Minister together. Laugh together. Cry together. Dream together!”
The tears that filled their eyes told me they understood the weight of these words. Marriage isn’t just shared tax returns and dinner plates—it’s shared visions. It’s looking at the stars together and daring to imagine what might be.
In Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, Solomon writes: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up… Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
I’ve come to believe this passage isn’t just about physical labor or protection—it’s about the labor of dream-carrying and the protection of vulnerable visions. It’s about having someone who defends your dream when others attack it. Someone who helps pick up the fragments when a dream shatters. Someone who celebrates when dreams begin to materialize.
No one should ever have to dream alone.
Learning to Dream Together
Perhaps you’re reading these words and realizing you’ve been a solitary dreamer for too long. Or perhaps you recognize that you’ve been the dream-dismisser in someone else’s story—the brother scoffing at Joseph’s visions.
Here’s what I believe: God is in the business of connecting dreamers. He orchestrates divine appointments between those who need dream-partners. Sometimes it’s a spouse. Sometimes it’s a friend who believes in you more than you believe in yourself. Sometimes it’s a community of fellow travelers who understand the particular shape of your vision.
If you’re married, when was the last time you sat with your spouse and really listened to their deepest hopes? Not the practical dreams of retirement plans and kitchen renovations—though those matter too—but the soul-dreams. The visions that stir them in the night. The purpose they sense God whispering to their spirit.
If you’re single, who has God placed in your life as potential dream-partners? Who needs you to be the one who says, “I believe in what you see”?
And if you’re the one whose dreams have been ridiculed or dismissed, hear this: Your dreams matter. The visions God has planted in your heart aren’t accidents or vain imaginings. Keep dreaming, but don’t dream alone. Pray for God to send you dream-partners who will listen without jealousy and champion your vision without agenda.
The Wedding Dream
That wedding ceremony marked the beginning of something in my ministry. This message—never dream alone—has become a cornerstone of every wedding I perform. I’ve watched as couples grasp hands a little tighter when I speak these words, as parents in the audience wipe away tears, as something shifts in the atmosphere.
Because deep down, we all know this truth: We were made to dream together.
Joseph eventually found dream-partners in unlikely places. A pharaoh who recognized God’s hand on him. Officials who implemented his vision. A nation that benefited from his foresight. And yes, eventually, those same brothers who once despised his dreams came to participate in their fulfillment.
God’s dreams have a way of enduring, even when they start in isolation. But how much sweeter the journey when we find companions for the road.
Tonight, before you sleep, ask yourself: Whose dream can I nurture? Who needs me to listen without judgment, to believe without reservation? And whose hands can I place my own dreams into, trusting they’ll handle them with care?
Because in God’s kingdom, dreams are never meant to be solo endeavors.
They’re invitations to partnership.
They’re bridges between hearts.
They’re God’s way of saying, “Let’s imagine together what could be.”
And no one—not one single dreamer—should ever have to walk that sacred path alone.
