GOD MEANT IT FOR GOOD - CHAPTER 5
STARTING A NEW LIFE
Joseph was suddenly placed in a strange new
country, forced to cope with unwanted new beginnings. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Joseph
was now a slave. The Ishmaelites owned
him for a while, but later sold him to a man called Potiphar. Potiphar was an Egyptian, a high ranking
officer in Pharoah’s army, a man of class and prestige. He had wealth but also perception.
“God loves every man as though there were
no one else to love.” St Augustine
God also prepares every man as though there
were no one else. Joseph never asked for
this preparation. He was forced to start
a new life as a way of being prepared for future service. A great upheaval had taken place. Everything was happening so rapidly. Now we find him in Egypt, cut off from all
the people and surroundings he had ever known.
Joseph was being irrevocably emancipated
from his past. He could not go
back. It would not do any good even to
daydream about returning. Joseph could
not dream about going back to Canaan.
God does us an enormous favour when he
makes us see we simply cannot return.
Sometimes we are at a standstill because we are still hoping somehow to
go back to things as they once were. We
can waste days and months, possibly years trying to go back. Joseph could not because God prevented him.
This is so very true – how many times have
I not daydreamed to go back to the way things once were before I made a
mistake. But I cannot return, what is
past is past and will never be that way again.
It is hard to learn that I have to move on.
Now Joseph was in phase 2 of his
preparation. Phase 1 had been falling
into the pit, being rescued in time and kept alive. Phase 2 could almost be called the “fun
part”. When God makes us break from the
past, he puts something in its place to make things not only bearable but also
even pleasant.
Really?
I cannot really say that at this moment in time I am in a happy
place. I do not really believe right now
that I could be happy again … and yet is this because I am preventing my own
happiness? Maybe I am not allowing God
to let me be happy. Strange isn’t it.
God does not want us to be unhappy. He wants us to get joy not only from him, but
also from the provisions that he gives us.
And God does this to encourage us to go on.
There were 3 ways in which God made things
bearable for Joseph.
First Joseph had rest from his
enemies. He had a rough time. True, he brought a lot of it on himself, but
he had become a victim of cruel hatred.
There came a time when God said, “Enough is enough”. God knows how much we can bear. There comes a time when he looks down from
heaven and lets us know he sees what we are going through.
Paul said, “There hath no temptation (or
trial) taken you but such as is common to man” (1 Corinthians 10 verse
13). This means that others have been
through it before. It could be that what
we are going through seems unique in the history of man. We all tend to think that about
ourselves. But Paul said that is not
true. God will not put us through any
temptation that has not been experienced by others. “But God is faithful, who will not suffer you
to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a
way to escape, that he may be able to bear it.” 1 Corinthians 10 verse 13
Now Joseph was given rest from his
enemies. He was able to live free from
the kind of terror, jealousy and hatred he had known. He was not overjoyed about being in Egypt,
but at least he did not have that terror.
The second thing that made all this
bearable – and this is the main thing – Joseph had the presence of the
Lord. “And the Lord was with Joseph”
Genesis 39 verse 2. Now this had been
true before. Joseph had felt the
presence of the Lord before. But perhaps
he had not felt it that much. There is a
sense in which he had not needed it before now.
He had his father to whom he could always turn. If he was ever in trouble, he did not turn to
the Lord.
I have been brought to the place where I
have needed God alone. That is when I
felt the presence of God. That was when
I cried to God and really experienced the nearness of God like never
before. This has been my experience over
the past year in particular. God has
become so very real to me and meaningful as I have drawn close to him through
his word every day.
God wants us to feel him! When God selects a man for a mission, high on
God’s agenda will be that he alone must become precious. This is why he makes us break with our past. So that for the first time we will really
know what God is like!
There was a third thing that made things
bearable, even pleasant for Joseph. He
prospered in his new career. There is
only one explanation for this: God did it to encourage him. If God wanted to, he could have brought
Joseph to Egypt and let him live in the dust.
There was a dungeon not far away that Joseph would eventually inhabit
but he could not take that yet. God knew
that. God knew Joseph needed a time to
be encouraged, otherwise he might have been demoralised. God never demoralizes us.
I honestly have never thought about this –
Joseph could have easily ended up in prison as soon as he arrived in Egypt but
God allowed him an alternative life.
This is amazing – to realise that God orchestrated all of this for his
purposes.
Joseph would be tested, however, to see if
he would put his most cherished gift in suspension. God put it on the shelf for a little
while.
God knew Joseph had other gifts. Joseph’s other abilities would never have
emerged if he had not had a new job like this.
Joseph had other gifts and they had to come out. We are talking about a man who was destined
to be the future governor of Egypt.
Although he did not know that, God did.
Joseph did not know that starting at the bottom of Potiphar’s household
was preparing him to be governor of Egypt.
We do not know what God is preparing for us. Who knows what God will do with us. It may be that we will use a gift we did not
know we had. We will never discover it
as long as we are concentrating on the only thing we think we are good at.
Joseph needed to learn the graces of his
new culture in his new country, and Potiphar would be his model. Potiphar was a man of class and prestige, a
man of wealth who had the sort of skills and qualities that would be required
of a governor. Joseph merely said to
himself, “I am going to obey this man. I
will do what he says.” Joseph could not
help noticing Potiphar’s mannerisms.
Potiphar would be his model, and Joseph, no doubt, vowed early on that
he would make the most of everything in this new situation.
It is important to remember that Joseph
started at the bottom. Genesis 39 verse
2 shows that Joseph was elevated to live in the house of his master. Imagine living in the house itself! There were quarters for the slaves far from
the master’s own house.
Again a point I never realised – there was
a period of time involved here. It took
Joseph time to work into a position of trust and into the house of his
master. God was working everything else
out in his way.
Moreover, Potiphar saw that “the Lord was
with him” Genesis 39 verse 3. Verse 2
says that the Lord was with Joseph.
Verse 3 says, “His master saw that the Lord was with him.” We are talking about a godless Egyptian who
saw that the Lord was with Joseph. There
are 2 Hebrew words for Lord. One is
Yahweh and the other is Adonai. Yahweh
was God’s special revelation of his name to his people only. In Egypt they would know nothing of
Yahweh. They had never heard of a God
like that. But we are told that Potiphar,
this godless Egyptian, knew that Yahweh was with Joseph. How could that be? Well, there is only one way. Joseph told him. At some point, Joseph talked about his God.
That could have put Potiphar right off, but
it did not because Potiphar recognised in Joseph something so unusual that it
commanded his attention. He may or may
not have liked what he heard, but he thought, “well I am interested in
this.” Except perhaps for his great
grandfather Abraham who had visited Egypt earlier, Joseph was the first
worshiper of the true God to live in Egypt.
This meant that Joseph would be watched by Potiphar to see what became
of a man who made a profession like that.
There is a right way and a wrong way to
witness on the job.
What a challenge for me personally – do
people see and know a difference in my attitude to work. Am I hard working, conscientious?
One indication the Lord was with Joseph was
the way he adjusted to his new surroundings.
Potiphar must have known that this way of life was not easy for Joseph,
because he had never had to work.
Potiphar could merely look at Joseph and tell. He could feel his hands – they were not
rough. He could look at his face – it was not weather-beaten. Clearly Joseph had not lived a rough
life. But look at Joseph now – he had to
start at the bottom and work his way up.
Another explanation for Joseph’s prosperity
was he excelled partly because this new life meant comparatively little to
him. He was quite detached from what he
was doing. First he was attached to the
Lord. Second his heart and ambition were
elsewhere. People who are too attached
to their own surroundings sometimes are not as effective as they could be. Egypt meant nothing to Joseph; therefore he
did not get so personally or emotionally involved that his struggles became
counter-productive.
God does not want us to like our
surroundings too much. Those servants
around Joseph would have given anything in the world to be living in Potiphar’s
house. It did not mean that much to
Joseph, though. Partly because he was in
this strange country. Joseph did not
take himself all that seriously. After
all, there was not anybody there that knew him.
There is little delight in being exalted if nobody knows and recognises
us. Now if he could have shared it with
his 11 brothers, that would have done something for him.
What was Joseph’s ambition? More than anything else in the world, he
wanted vindication before his brothers.
But that appeared to be an unreachable goal. Sometimes God gives some of us an unreachable
aspiration so what we do attain does not go to our heads. Perhaps Potiphar could also see this in
Joseph.
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