Joseph - Day 4 Then he examined it and said, It is my sons tunic. A wild beast has devoured him; Joseph has surely been torn to pieces! So Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days. Then all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son. So his father wept for him. Meanwhile, the Midianites sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, Pharaohs officer, the captain of the bodyguard. (Genesis 37:33-36 NASB) * Think about how selfish most of Josephs brothers were to not only do what they did to Joseph but then to not even fess up when they saw how devastated their father was. As we will see, these brothers caused Jacob at least 7 years of the worst anguish and pain a father can experience. True, they were probably terrified to come clean, but their fear was them caring way more about what happened to themselves than they were of relieving the intense suffering of their own father. The truth is, we are all afraid of things and that is natural, but when we allow our fears to hurt other people, that is when I believe it becomes, or rather reveals selfishness. Granted some of us have anxiety issues that make that not true but I am talking about those of us who dont have anxiety issues, etc. Also, what the brothers did and continued to do for the next seven years was not even good for their own well beings as we will see as we read on. They were most likely filled with guilty feelings for those seven years and probably much longer than that. Treating other people badly is also bad for the people who are treating the people badly. Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an Egyptian officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the bodyguard, bought him from the Ishmaelites, who had taken him down there. The LORD was with Joseph, so he became a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian. (Genesis 39:1-2 NASB) * To me, the biggest theme of the story of Joseph is that God sometimes allows His people to be mistreated by others to accomplish His plans. Jesus dying on the cross is the ultimate example of this. Now, this doesnt mean that Gods people whom He allows to be mistreated didnt mistreat others as as well which may have even led to the mistreatment in the first place or that Gods people whom He allows to be mistreated didnt make huge mistakes and have huge issues themselves that again may have led to the mistreatment in the first place, but I think the point is that God sometimes uses all of our mistreatments of each other to accomplish His overall plan. * God made Joseph land in Egypt with Potiphar and that was a major upgrade in many ways from Josephs former life. He had all kinds of opportunity to grow that he would not have had back where he used to live and there were many other benefits to living there as well. Of course, this probably didnt lessen the pain that Joseph probably experienced from being mistreated by his brothers, but I believe God was even using that very pain to transform Joseph into what He was to become so that he could handle things at the completion of Gods plan.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 13:10:56 +0000
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