JOSEPH (Part 2)

But let's go back in time.

As a youngster, Joseph was overconfident. His natural self-assurance, increased by being Jacob's favourite son and by knowing of God's designs on his life, was unbearable to his ten older brothers, who eventually conspired against him. But this self-assurance, molded by pain and combined with a personal knowledge of God, allowed him to survive and prosper where most would have failed. He added  quite wisdom to his confidence and won the hearts of everyone he met - Potiphar, other prisoners, the pharaoh, and after many years, even those ten brothers.

Perhaps you can identify  with one or more of these hardships Joseph experienced: he was betrayed and deserted by his family; he was exposed to sexual temptation, and punished for doing the right thing; he endured a long imprisonment and was forgotten by those he helped. But, Joseph tackled all of these situations with a positive response which transformed each setback into a step forward. He didn't spend much time asking 'Why?' His approach was 'What shall I do now?' Those who met Joseph were aware that wherever he went and whatever he did, God was with him.

What a lesson for us. When you're facing a setback, the beginning of a Joseph-like attitude is to acknowledge that God is with you. There is nothing like His presence to shed a new light on a dark situation. What matters is not so much the events or the circumstances of life, but our response to them. With God's help, any situation can be used for good, even when others intend it for evil.

In a to and fro manner, let's go back to the verse in the beginning of the article, Genesis 39:2.

The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man.

Those words can be deceiving if we fail to understand the whole story. 

Not that Joseph wasn't successful; he was. But understanding the context in which these words were spoken is critical if we are to grasp the depth of the statement. 

If we look up the word “successful” we would see that some synonyms for this word would be victorious, triumphant, fortunate.  

Knowing that, if we look at the big picture of Joseph's life, we would be unlikely to consider him triumphant or victorious. 

He was betrayed by his brothers, who tossed him into a pit and sold him to a slave trader. 

Those same brothers told their father that he was dead, killed by a wild animal. As previously mentioned, he was then taken to a foreign land where he was subsequently sold by the slave traders to Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh.

Joseph had gone from being the highly favoured son of Jacob, to being sold as a slave by his brothers who despised him. Then transported to a foreign land, where he was now working for an Egyptian master. 

He was a slave, plain and simple. 

If we were to look at Joseph's situation at this point in his life, would we really consider him to be successful? 

In the natural sense, there was no success to be found. 

In the natural sense, his life would have been seen as miserable. 

And in the natural sense, Joseph had suffered blows that gave him good reason to live out his years with hatred and bitterness in his heart toward his brothers, and toward the God who had allowed this to happen to him. 

But what did Joseph do? How did he handle this seemingly tragic turn of events? (to be continued)