Hope Deferred and the Art of a Good Story  

  [dropcaps type='circle' color='' background_color='' border_color='']P[/dropcaps]racticed readers know that a story is as good as its first chapter, sometimes its first paragraph. To understand our story within the arc of God’s narrative, the concept doesn’t change: we look to the beginning of the story to understand its end.   In the first book of the Bible, we meet a seventeen-year-old Joseph who has just revealed two dreams he received from the Lord, which prophesy of his unique calling. This news rouses his older brothers’ jealousy. They, in turn, sell him into slavery, which is the means by which Joseph fulfills his prophetic dream and...