Then Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the
king's prisoners were confined. And he was there in the prison. But the
Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and He gave him favor in the
sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed
to Joseph's hand all the prisoners who were in the prison; whatever they did
there, it was his doing. The keeper of the prison did not look into
anything that was under Joseph's hand, because the Lord was with him; and
whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.
~ Genesis 39:20-23
Poor Joseph! It seemed like one disaster after another came into his
life...hated by his brothers, left to die by them, then sold into slavery
instead, and just when things were looking up as God blessed all Joseph did
in his master's house, Joseph was thrown into prison because he refused to
lie with his master's wife and she lied, saying he had attacked her.
Everything and everybody must have been against him!
Sometimes it seems like that in our lives....circumstances beat us down as
disaster after disaster happens, and we wonder where God is in all of it.
Does He really care? And if He cares, why does all of this keep happening?
I'm sure Joseph struggled with the very same doubts at times. But even in
the midst of what seemed like disasters, God was working out His plan, and
as Joseph remained obedient to God and trusted in Him, God granted Him favor
with all who were in authority over Joseph. Despite circumstances that
would have caused many people to just give up, Joseph persevered and even
prospered! He knew that God was in control, even in the times when it
seemed as if He wasn't there.
Years later, when confronted with his brothers and the chance for revenge,
Joseph was able to forgive them and see God's hand in all that had happened.
"I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt," he said to them. "But
now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold
me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years
the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which
there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to
preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great
deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God." (Gen.
45:4-8) And at the end of his life he reassured his brothers yet again,
"But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, in
order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive." (Gen
50:20)
Joseph understood that all that came into his life, both good and bad, was
part of God's plan. I'm sure that he struggled with understanding why and
trusting God when the bad things were happening, but he knew who God was,
and he knew that trusting God was not a mistake. God took the evil done
against Joseph and used it to save a nation!
Let's all learn from the life of Joseph today. Bad things will happen, but
God is greater than those things and will use them for His good, even though
we might not know how right now. Let the faith of Joseph become ours,
knowing that, as children of the living God, He will deliver us and carry us
through. He is faithful and worthy of trust!
In Jesus' name,
Amen!!
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