Examples of Faith #4—Joseph

Joseph’s master saw that Yahweh was with him and that he caused all that Joseph did to succeed. … Joseph refused his master’s wife’s advances: “… My master has put all that he owns in my charge. … He has withheld nothing from me except you because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?” Genesis 39:3, 8–9

Joseph understood that despite drawing a ‘z,’ two ‘y’s, and a ‘blank’ from life’s Scrabble pile, he was not out of the game. “Syzygy” is worth a lot of points when it’s in the right place. As he languished in jail on trumped up charges, Joseph remembered the dream God gave him that he would eclipse the sun and moon and stars (his parents and brothers). He maintained his confidence in God despite the actions of his treacherous brothers and his lecherous mistress. So he served the people in the places he found himself and God prospered his ministry. For when he was a slave and a prisoner “God was with him,” just as he had been with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when they faced difficulties. Joseph’s confidence in God did not keep him from experiencing evil at the hands of others but it kept him from being evil in return. It did not keep him from desperation but it kept him from despair. In the end God raised him from prison to prominence. As a result of Joseph’s faith in God’s faithfulness, Joseph was able to forgive his brothers and to assure them that though they intended evil for him, God intended a good that was beyond even his imagining, the saving of two significant people groups.

Sovereign God, strengthen me; help me; uphold me with your righteous right hand so I don’t quit when the pieces of my life seem not to make sense immediately.