Lately, I have begun a challenge to read the Bible in 90 Days. It is not actually a speed reading challenge as I originally thought. It is more like getting to know the outlining story. I want to keep a blog to preserve the lessons that God is teaching me through this time. I easily forget how God has already worked in my life, and grow discouraged far too quickly.
Last night I read through the story of Joseph. Personally, the story of Joseph has to be in my top 3 favorite Bible stories. I love to see how God uses a once egotistical, prideful, arrogant teenager to save not only his family from starvation during a 7 year famine, but pretty much the whole world. That is CRAZY and that is God. God does what is impossible for man. Joseph starts his life as know-it-all, tattle-tale. God uses unlikely circumstances to produce in Joseph a heart that seeks God’s will and not his own fleshly nature. I can’t even imagine being sold into slavery by my family, accused of rape when completely innocent, and forgotten in a prison cell by all, but God. WOW!! I asked myself if I have the kind of faith that would endure trial after trial, and in it all hold onto the promise that God would lift me up to a place beyond my most daring imaginings.
Living in a land that despised Hebrews, Joseph continued to live for God and not mold to the world around him. In Genesis it says he found favor with God. Do we find favor with God? As Christ-followers we are called to a higher standard. A standard that is not our own and does not come naturally. It is a standard that says deny yourself and choose to follow God. Personally I grow discouraged when I see Christ-followers claim a relationship with Christ, but not actually living for Him. How can any of us be in a relationship with someone that we never make time for? Keith Green has a song called “You Love the World (and you’re avoiding me). One of the lyrics is “You used to pray, you were so brave, Now you can’t even keep one appointment we’ve made, Oh I gave My blood to save your life, tell me, tell me is it right?, Tell me will you leave me here alone again tonight?” When they curse and get drunk every Friday night, when they wear clothes that are immodest, when they pursue relationships that are not equally yoked, I question myself and wonder why I am following a standard that my brothers and sisters have discovered is obsolete. I’m imperfect and I want what I want as much as the next person. However, I want to be like Joseph and do what is right even when I am punished for it. I wish Joseph had a journal or a diary, so I could read about his daily struggles and see how his faith built through the testing. Sometimes I get lost in the testing and forget that God will produce fruit through my pain.
What also gets to me is the part in the story where Joseph interprets the dreams of the cup-bearer and the baker. He asks the cup-bearer to not forget him and the cup-bearer promises, but guess what?! HE FORGETS!!!!! Two years go by before Joseph is released from prison. I got two things out of this: God doesn’t work in our timing and God is the one that ALWAYS remembers us. God worked it out for his glorious plan. If the cup-bearer had remembered Joseph, Joseph probably would have never received an audience with Pharaoh and might have simply gone home to his family. However, God didn’t want Joseph to SIMPLY go home to his family. God immensely blessed him and manifested the dreams of his youth. I always have to remind myself that God wants to get me to where I want to go more than I want to get there. He has a righteous plan for all of our lives. Joseph’s sufferings were not in vain. God strategically placed him in prison for a reason. I pray that I learn to trust God more and not be governed by what I see. I desire to live by faith. That is what pleases God. That is how Joseph found favor with God. He lived by faith in less than encouraging personal experiences. His faith took him from self-boasting to God-promoting. You see this when he stands before Pharaoh and tells him that only God can interpret his dreams not a man.
I could go on and on, but I will stop because I have to go to work. To my amazement the Word of God always has something new to share with me and something new to unearth. It really is living and breathing!!
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