Shedding Unnecessary Layers

Are you carrying unnecessary layers in your life? Life often piles on layers: expectations, flippancy, ego, fear, and superficiality.

These layers can cloud our vision and weigh down our purpose. Joseph, for instance, carried layers.

His confidence and innocence shaped his dreams, but they also complicated his relationships. He had the habit of sharing every dream he saw.

Like most teenagers, he would say again and again, “I have a dream! I have a dream!” Rather than uniting his family, Joseph’s words further strained an already fragile relationship.

A relationship complicated by the tension born from their mothers’ competition, and deepened by the jealousy already brewing among his insecure brothers.

His brothers’ discomfort with his innocence and clarity grew into resentment, which hardened into hatred. To them, the only way to silence him was to destroy him.

Yet graciously, their murderous plan was foiled; instead of killing him, they sold him into slavery.

You know the story. Faced with the harsh realities of betrayal, servitude, and imprisonment, the superficiality of his youth gave way to growth.

Joseph was compelled to confront his true self. Through pain and loss, he learned discretion, realizing that not everyone shared his excitement or celebrated his dreams, not even his own brothers.

When, at last, he saw his brothers bowing before him, just as he had once dreamed, he remembered the dreams which he had dreamed about them (Genesis 42:9), but he said nothing.

He only turned it over in his heart. The boastful boy had become a man of wisdom and restraint.

Now a governor in Egypt, Joseph understood that even his emotions had to be controlled, for any outburst could reach Pharaoh’s ears. 

Remember when he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and the news reached Pharaoh’s palace? (Genesis 45:2); only this time, it was for good.

Serving as a slave and prisoner for nearly thirteen years, for crimes he did not commit, was long enough to shed many layers.

Similarly, we have to step back once in a while and ask ourselves: “What layers do I need to shed?” Layers of superficiality? Flippancy? The pressure to belong???

No one can carry these weights and still be free to pursue God’s dream for their life. The Lord separates those He calls.

He cleanses us from all superficiality so that our sufficiency may be of the Lord, and not of ourselves.

For the Scriptures enjoin us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2).

May the Lord take away every trace of superficiality, so that your sufficiency will be found only in Him.