Through Thick and Thin

By Gavin Mullin    25th January 2004    0 responses

Often in our lives things happen that do not go the way that we would like them to. At these times we have two choices, we can either get upset with various people, ourselves, others, or even God, blaming them for the thing that has gone wrong. The other choice that we have is to look at what has happened to us and then say to God, ‘look you know that this is not what I wanted to happen, but if it is your will then I will do it for you.’ We can say that God knows better than us, and if it is in his plan for us then it will ultimately be the right thing to do.

There was a young man in Genesis who was in a good position in life. He had eleven brothers, but “Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him.” (Gen 37:3) Joseph was also having dreams from God that made his brothers jealous of him. Basically Joseph appeared to be the stereotypical favourite child that wanted all of the attention and thought that he could get away with anything so he should push his boundaries as far as he could. As usual this was not something that endeared him to his siblings, but rather caused them to dislike him immensely, and more than likely make fun of him behind his back. His brothers hated him so much that they actually wanted to kill him because of the way that he acted towards them. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.” (Gen 37:20) As it went his brothers decided that they would not kill him, but this was not because they did not want to. Instead they saw an opportunity to make some money out of getting rid of Joseph. When a wondering group of merchants passed by they sold Joseph to them, as a slave.

Joseph could have given up at this point, he had seen his position as the family favourite disappear, and all hope may have seemed gone. Joseph carried on his slavery though, and eventually got a position of trust within a family, although he was still a slave his life would not have been too bad in this position. However, the mistress of the house had her own ideas about Joseph. “One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.” (Gen 39:11-12) The upshot of this was that the mistress said that he tried to rape her, and he was thrown into prison. Once again Joseph had got the rough end of the stick. This time the reason was solely because he was doing what was right though, and so it must have hurt badly to punished in this way.

Joseph then had an opportunity to get out of prison, but the person that he had helped, and was now relying on forgot about him. Joseph’s hopes had again been dashed, and it must have been hard for him to maintain hope in other people, for they had let him down so often. He must have also thought that God had deserted him, after all what could the purpose be behind what had happened to him. It would not have been possible for him to see the good that God was preparing through this.

God did raise Joseph up from his position in jail, and made him the second most important person in all of Egypt to the Pharaoh. This was at the time when Egypt was the most powerful nation in the world, so Joseph basically went from a prisoner in jail to the second most important man on the planet in next to no time. This must have been something that few could have predicted. It showed the power that God has over all things and that at the time that he chooses he can reverse the established order of things. Due to the new position of power that Joseph had he managed to store up sufficient food in Egypt to have enough for a famine that lasted for seven years. None of the nations around Egypt had enough food, so they all had to come to buy their food. It was at this time that Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt, in order to buy food. This could have been the time that Joseph got his revenge on them for the thing that they had done to him, but he did not do this. Instead he showed them kindness, and moved all of his family over to Egypt to live with him.

Some time later Joseph’s father died, and at this point his brothers thought that Joseph would take his revenge on them. They thought that anyone that had been sold into slavery would want revenge for that if they could get it later on, and that it was only because of their father that Joseph did not do anything to them initially.

“His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves”, they said. But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid, Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Gen 50:19-20) Joseph’s brothers did not recognise that he was someone that God had changed through the things that he had experienced. God had humbled Joseph in his heart, and made him see that God alone was to be held in honour by men. Joseph no longer had the pride in his life that he once had, even though he had more of a reason to have it now than ever before.

Often we are like Joseph. We are in a position that we like and then God takes us out of it and does something to us that we do not want to happen. We may not see God’s hand in it initially, but we have to react to it in the way that Joseph does. He never lost his faith in the Lord, even though everyone seemed to be acting in a way that hurt him he did not lose sight of the Lord. In fact his experience brought him nearer to the Lord and taught him something that he needed to know, that pride in yourself is not something that is good.

Above all when things go badly for us in our lives we need to have the attitude of Joseph when he said “Am I in the place of God.” He knew that he was not, and so even when things went wrong for him he was not in a position to challenge them. God alone knows what the best thing to happen is, and so we have to learn to trust him, and instead of complaining when something goes wrong we have to ask God for help, and worship him for knowing the best course of action to take. It may not be easy, but we can see from Joseph’s story that if we do that God will be faithful to us and we will receive our reward for it. It may not be in this life as Joseph’s story showed it, but we will receive a reward in heaven. That is a reward that far outweighs anything that we can experience here on earth, and is only possible because of the amazing plan that God is working out. Even if that plan involves a little bit of hardship for us at times we know that it is the best plan that there could be.

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By Gavin Mullin

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