What Faith Remembers
In the morning his mind was troubled, so he sent for all the magicians and wise men of Egypt. Pharaoh told them his dreams, but no one could interpret them for him. Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “Today I am reminded of my shortcomings.”
Genesis 41:8-9 (NIV)
There is a parallel between faith and patience. Two years earlier, Joseph asked the cupbearer to remember him in his freedom. The cupbearer, two years later, repents of having not remembered Joseph. And in between Joseph asking to be remembered and the cupbearer repenting of not having remembered Joseph, Pharaoh has a dream. That dream is going to teach Joseph that while he may have been delayed, he is never forgotten by God.
What could not be rushed is the natural progression that is going to lead to the seven years of unusual plenty followed by the seven years of excruciatingly damaging famine. But it takes two years to unfold, and while waiting, Joseph has to steward his belief in the person, the power, and the promises of his God. The only offering Joseph can give to God, beautifully wrapped in faith, is patience.
Waiting is a part of patience and, whether we like it or not, our faith requires patience. But patience is not just about waiting. If you were to study the word patience in the original Hebrew, it is transliterated not as waiting but as bearing and tolerating.
Patience is an offering you give to God that disciplines your spirituality to tolerate the waiting. Here’s the key: it’s not just the capacity to handle the load. It’s not just the capacity to tolerate the season. It’s the willingness to do it.
You have to love God enough, trust Him enough, believe in Him enough, want to honor Him enough that you’re willing to bear the load and wait on Him because you trust that however He is working, He is working for His will and your good.
You have to decide:
- I’m not going to stop trusting that God will remember me.
- I will not settle for comfortable at the risk of providential.
- I won’t cut short my process.
- I’m not going to accept temporary relief that will then ensure long-term pain.
Instead, I’m willing to bear this load and tolerate this season because I trust God to be unfolding His will for my life according to His sovereign plan for me. And I’m not just bearing this because I have to. I’m bearing this because I want to.
Why? Because you mean that much to God. You mean so much to Him that He gave His Son for your redemption. That’s how much you mean to Him! You have to bear this load, tolerate this season, and handle this weight while you wait—not just because of how much you mean to Him, but because of how much He means to you.
Better at Pushing the Boundaries
The Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.
Genesis 39:23 (NIV)
Have you created boundaries in your life where you have concluded there is really no productive space beyond them? No experience worth connecting to? No discoveries beyond those that you have already been connected to? No need for challenge, stretching, growing, learning, or evolving?
Have you perhaps protected boundaries that God is pushing on to extend you beyond them?
Maybe your resistance is because if you occupy space beyond your current boundaries, you are not sure that you can carry that weight. In other words, you’re not sure that you can honor that task, that you can bring healthy emotion to that exchange, or that you can lift that burden or endure that trial or manage and steward that sickness.
This constant theme is so revelatory in Joseph’s life. It’s clear that God had to get Joseph from wearing a coat of many colors to being sold into slavery to dispensing wisdom that guides a nation in famine-stricken times. And to get him there, God keeps pushing out the boundaries of his life, pushing him through these awful experiences, pushing him through these tough emotional embraces, pushing him through these perilous predicaments.
The writer of Genesis can only say this with all he’s been through: The Lord was with him.
Joseph would never have signed up for the project in Egypt if God told him, “Now, in order for us to get you there, Joe, we are going to have to let you be dropped in a pit, sold into slavery, carted off 280 miles away to Egypt, sold to Potiphar, accused of sexual harassment because of Potiphar’s wife, and sent to prison—all because we are trying to get you in position.”
Whenever God is pushing us where we obviously would not volunteer to go, we have to go remembering that “outside our boundaries” is never outside the space of God’s providence, presence, and love. God is with us, which is why He’s forcing the expansion of these boundaries.
Faith grows, vision expands, lessons are learned, beliefs are matured, and theology is deepened where boundaries are pushed.
Not Letting Bitter Get the Best of Me
Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned.
Genesis 39:1-4 (NIV)
You can be so disappointed that things didn’t turn out as you expected, regretting that you offered faith in God in the first place. You can become convinced that people are incapable of being loyal to anything or anybody other than themselves. You can become bitter.
Somewhere between the pit and the hard pilgrimage to Egypt, Joseph must have decided “I will not see myself like they see me. I have a dream, and you can strip my coat, but you can’t strip my purpose.” As Joseph’s brothers go on with life, it seems they think they have gotten away with murder, as between the end of chapters 37 and 39, we do not hear about Joseph.
But as things turned out, God was with Joseph, and things went very well with him.
Bitterness, from a theological perspective, is rebellion against optimism and a combatant to spiritual hope. But when you have a relationship with God, He gives you grace to live better than everything that would leave you bitter.
This text teaches us that you don’t have to let bitter get the best of you. You can live better than bitter. It has been said that bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting somebody else to die. Bitterness can’t change anything about your past, but if you don’t fight it, it can ruin everything about your future.
And it doesn’t start with God’s promise of a reversal of fortune. It doesn’t start with a guarantee of retribution. It doesn’t start with God telling you, “Don’t worry, I’m going to turn your enemies upside down.” It doesn’t start with a chance to witness the suffering of those who made you suffer.
In fact, it starts with a commitment to a hard spiritual discipline called self-compassion. Self-compassion is not letting what has happened to you make you treat yourself based on what has happened to you. Self-compassion to nurture spiritual hope in Jesus Christ is our antidote to bitterness.
Doing Better at Trusting God
But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. “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.” When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
Genesis 37:18-22 (NIV)
Reuben heard the brothers’ schemes and he delivered Joseph out of their hands. He says to them, “Don’t kill Joseph. You can drop him in the pit if you desire, but don’t lay a hand on him. Don’t shed any of his blood.”
Reuben is not unfamiliar with Joseph’s ornate robe or with his parental distinction or with the dreams that he and his brothers would be bowing down to Joseph. He’s not separated from the queries and the questions that this dream raises. He is the only one who raises the objection to the collective plot to kill this dreaming brother of theirs. The brothers have no idea how committed God is to the fulfillment of the revelation He has disclosed. So where did this sudden change come from?
God does not do all of his work on the visible stage. He doesn’t do everything in a way that makes it clear to us. He does not always provide clear disclosure of how things are going to unfold. But He is moving behind the scenes.
You can’t hear God’s voice in the text. He doesn’t crack the sky open and let His voice descend. There is no parting-of-the-water kind of display. He’s not showing up in a whirlwind and Joseph doesn’t hear Him speaking in a still small voice. But behind the scenes, God is moving and tugging and pulling on a young man’s heart and making other brothers reasonable enough to listen to an alternative plan.
You, also, need to nurture a trust in God and fan into flame a confidence in God that when you are simply walking in the direction of obedience, you can feel safe enough to trust your steps because you know that, even when you don’t know where you’re going, God is working behind the scenes to make all right.
Better at Wandering
Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.” “Very well,” he replied. So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?” He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”
Genesis 37:12-16 (NIV)
This young man, Joseph, is gifted. God’s got a purpose for his life that’s unique. And yet in the text, Jacob tries to normalize Joseph in spite of the coat, in spite of the dreams, and in spite of the purpose attached to his life. Jacob tells him, “Go out to the fields, find your brothers, see if all is well with them and the flocks.” Maybe he’s trying to force a better relationship and connection between Joseph and his brothers. We don’t know, but we definitely know that God is shaping his life through some very tough arrangements and God is forging him through some tough experiences yet to unfold. The beginning of it is perhaps going to be the toughest.
His future is so clearly revealed. His purpose is so clearly defined. His life is so distinctly set apart. And yet we find him, in these verses, wandering.
Did you know that ordered steps don’t always walk in straight lines? One of the lessons Joseph’s life is tailored to teach us is about purpose and vision. It doesn’t mean you don’t love Jesus because you can’t figure out your next move. Purpose and anointing and calling and giftedness sometimes wander. Being called doesn’t always mean clarity. Destiny and purpose don’t stop you from having meandering moments.
If Joseph has clarity of direction and finds them in Shechem, he misses the pit in Dothan, the ride from the caravan of Ishmaelites to Egypt. He never passes through Potiphar’s house. He doesn’t go to jail. He’s not there two decades later to save his family in the midst of a famine.
Do you know why God allows some of us to wander? Because He knows where our wandering is eventually going to take us. Wandering in life doesn’t necessarily mean you are not where God wants you to be. Perhaps you aren’t lost; you are being led.
