EXILED TO BLESS THE PEOPLE OF GOD
Most biblical stories are stories of triumph over certain defeat, victory in impossible circumstances, or faith in the face of bone-crushing loss and exile.
They teach us that God does not cause trouble to be circumvented but rather calls us to see that He, in His sovereignty, can bring salvation through pain, trouble, and suffering.
The story of Joseph is one of those stories.
When things go bad, many of us are tempted to think that the story is over far before it is—that all will soon fade to black and our light and hope will be snuffed out. The beauty of faith is that it is equipped to work when the lights go out, when there is utter darkness, when there is no hope, when hope itself seems but the cruelest version of Lucy's malicious plans to pull the football out from Charlie Brown just as he finds it within himself to trust.
It is the strategy of the devil to weaken our resolve to surrender completely to God by making us feel absolutely terrible when unfair or horrible things happen. When things go bad, our emotions can really take us to places that we don't want to go, and then, if we don't respond properly, we can fall into lethargy, blame, and despair. Let me say that, up front, early in a trial, we must make a proclamation of our faith in order to give our emotions something to rally around instead of falling into the downward spiral of dread. It does not stop there.
Part of Joseph's story is having faith in the good character of a God who wants to redeem everything. A bigger part of his story is Joseph being held, despite sinking emotions and the sharp arrows of outrageous actions, by the foreknowledge, sovereignty and love, yes love, of God.
Joseph was a favored son both by God and by man. The prophetic words over his life call him into his destiny by an unlikely path but how did this play itself out? Can you imagine being spitefully abandoned in the wilderness by your older brothers? Captured by foreigners and losing all that you have known of your former life?
How does Joseph hold onto his faith? We don't exactly know, but we do know this greater point: "The Lord was with Joseph.”[1] The key here is that God held onto Joseph! God doesn't abandon us in our darkest hours, and that is probably the primary reason why we triumph through them. Jesus teaches us to "take courage, for I have overcome the world”[2] and that "the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.”[3] Likewise, the apostle John tells us that the Comforter is given to us to help our infirmities.[4] Be very sure that God sits with us in our trials. God makes provision for us to believe Him when things become agonizing.
There is a biblical principle that we must “go down to come up,” that we must be planted in the earth to grow into the light, that night comes before day, that resurrection only comes after death. The devil can try to destroy us, but God means to bless not only us, but others, in our trials. Through our trials, pain, and deepest despair comes a path of salvation for us, for our family, and, as we shall see, for God’s nation.
Joseph had to go out of his home and his homeland to be planted into the ground so that God would have him where he needed to be when salvation was needed. There is no way that Joseph knew this in the natural. I don't think he could have hoped for anything more than one day to hear news of what had become of his family. He didn't have a plan to return. He was past his own help and past his own power to aid himself.
Joseph was blessed in Egypt even though it didn't seem to be a blessing in the way we count blessings. If you surrender to God, God can use your life to bless others in ways past your knowing. But let me take this one step deeper. This story can be applied to our own journey, but let us see it, just for a moment, as the journey of a corporate Joseph, at the end of the age, a remnant of the people of God being prepared to bless Israel in the "time of Jacob's trouble.”[5]
When Joseph's brothers realized that Joseph was not only standing before them, but had their destinies in his hands, the Scripture says, "they were dismayed in his presence.”[6] Their treachery had led them to this moment, and they knew it. Nothing in this story excuses their bad behavior. Joseph, as the victim, was not without the desire for a bit of gentle human payback, yet he did realize that it was God that had allowed all of this to happen for good. He says, "Do not be angry or grieved with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life....God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God.”[7]
That, my friends, is some real spiritual insight that covers over the wrongdoing, and sees God, and His good purpose, in the trouble's redemption. Joseph knew, deeply and first hand, that he was God's and that all that happened to him was known and overseen by God with the intention to turn it around and bless—even preserve—Israel’s posterity.
This tension, at the expense of our own comfort, may try us within an inch of our faith! We may be tempted to be bitter. We may be tempted to be vengeful on those who have hurt us if we are given half a chance. When Joseph's brothers began their journey back to Egypt Joseph tested them by putting the money, then the diviner's cup, back into their backpacks. Was he snickering? Does our suffering produce in us the urge for payback and vengeance? It is a human response, but it does not honor the honor paid to us as servants of God. Our call is to utterly abandon ourselves to God's peculiar and just plans to redeem good from evil through the temporal pain, inconvenience, or even death of His bondservants. If only we can see that, even by faith, ahead of time.
The end of the age will bring with it a difficult trial for Israel. We need to be willing for God to use us to serve and aid natural Israel in her hour of trouble. If we can embrace this principle now in our personal lives, knowing that it is not about us or what happens to us, but rather about something God is planning to do, then we will be ready to better serve Israel in the difficult days ahead. When we accepted the Lord's lordship over our lives, we gave Him the right to do with us what He wants. Let's see that as the greatest honor and blessing ever.
Rose-Marie Slosek came to know the Lord in the early seventies and has a passion for organic church and the maturing of the Body of Christ. She serves on the Emmaus Online Lead Team, leads Maranatha Northeast, and a local home fellowship. She can be reached at rmslosek@comcast.net.
[1] Genesis 39:21
[2] John 16:33
[3] John 1:5
[4] John 14:16
[5] Jeremiah 30:7
[6] Genesis 45:3
[7] Genesis 45: 5, 7-8
