“Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. 2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them.After they had been in custody for some time, 5 each of the two men – the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison – had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own.”NIV

“…and each dream had a meaning of its own” (5).

You might say each life has a meaning of its own. It has its own pathway and its own outcome.

On Monday morning, I was out of the house early, going for a run. For much of the time I saw no-one. That was fine, being by myself, going at my own steady pace. But after a while I was overtaken by a younger woman and she was soon out of sight. That was where comparison could have set in. But if it was likely to, I quickly dismissed it. She was probably close to half my age anyway; and even if I am passed by fellow 64 year olds, what does it matter? I’ve never been fast. I am a ‘plodder’. I’m not training for the Olympics, I’m just jogging for health and fitness (and it has the fringe benefit of clearing my mind and clarifying thinking). I think I got what I needed to out of the run. I didn’t have to win.

Comparisons are odious. This is what Peter discovered when he got inquisitive about John’s destiny. Basically Jesus told him to mind his own business, and to just get on with following Him (John 21:18-21). Jesus had a tailor-made purpose and destiny for Peter. It was different to John’s. Yes, they were both disciples of Christ. They had so much in common. But different life stories were being written by the Divine Author.

God was also writing different scripts for the 2 men Joseph met in jail. One had a happy ending; the other did not.

The truth is that as no two snowflakes are the same, no two people are the same either. John Stott once wrote something like this: ‘We are not to imagine that we have all been mass-produced in some celestial factory.’

Indeed!