I don’t know how God speaks to you, but with me, he usually drops little hints and reminders for me in various places, and from several different people, each adding a little more to what he is teaching me.
This time, it started with a verse in Psalm 105:19 that
jumped off the page during my morning time with Jesus in his word.
“God’s promise to Joseph purged his character until it was
time for his dreams to come true.” Ps. 105:19
Joseph was a dreamer, for sure, from the time he was a young
boy. And it’s true, his dreams didn’t
come true for a long, long time. So how
did God’s promise to Joseph purge his character until it was time for his
dreams to come true?
How does that work, that purging process? Sanctification.
First, Joseph had to believe the promise, even though he
couldn’t see it. It must have helped
that his family all understood the meaning of his dreams, the sun, moon and
stars all bowing down to him, and got down on him for thinking that his family
would one day bow to him. They understood,
but they didn’t believe it, and his brothers got pretty angry about the thought
of bowing down to their annoying kid brother.
But Joseph chose to believe God in spite of his circumstances. He held on to hope, and the Scriptures say
that the promise purged his character.
Purge: to get rid of
something or someone, often suddenly. To
get rid of impurity, to cleanse, to purify.
In order for his dreams to come true, Joseph had to remain
alive. I wonder if that thought occurred
to him as he lay in the deep hole his brothers had thrown him into. Or while he was led away to Egypt in slavery. Or when the wife of his master entrapped him
and had him sent to prison. What kept
him going? His life was truly purged of
anything and everything. All his rights
had been stripped away when he became a slave.
He owned nothing. In the darkness
and solitude of prison that truth must have been palpable. He had nothing, nothing but hope in the
promises of God. And because he still
trusted God, he served his prison master
well and came to a position of service in the prison. Then he used his favor with God to interpret
dreams for 2 fellow prisoners, asking them to remember to tell Pharaoh about
him, that he was unjustly accused and in prison.
Finally Joseph was remembered and given the chance to
interpret a dream for Pharaoh himself. He gave the credit to God for his ability to
interpret dreams. Pharaoh was so
grateful and so impressed with Joseph’s intelligence and creative strategies
that he hired Joseph on the spot to be second in command in the land of Egypt,
to manage the nation during the 7 years of prosperity and the 7 years of
famine.
When Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt to buy food from the
ruler of Egypt, they bowed low in honor to their brother, Joseph, whose dreams
were coming true at last. The years of
waiting and suffering, purging had done their work on Joseph’s character such
that Joseph was filled with love for his brothers who had caused him so much
suffering. Joseph could say to them, “You
meant what you did to hurt me, but God turned it around for my good, and for
the good of our nation, to preserve the lives of my family, and my people
during the famine.”
I heard one of the pastors at church speaking at a recent service,
reminding us that we need to stop thinking only about today, here and now, and
consciously sow into the next generation.
Again I thought of Joseph. On his
death bed Joseph instilled hope in his family by asking of them one special
request. “When God brings his people out
of Egypt and into their own land, you must carry my bones and bury them in that
land.” It wasn’t just a dying wish, it
was also a seed of hope, a dream, planted in Joseph’s family. It wasn’t “if you ever get out of Egypt”, no
it was “when God brings you out of Egypt into your own land.”
Joseph’s family took his dying request very seriously. Over the hundreds of years the Israelites
were stuck in Egypt, made slaves to serve Pharaoh and the Egyptian people, they
never forgot about those bones. I wonder
if they were ever tempted to just bury Joseph’s bones there, get that coffin
out of their home? When the kids would
ask, “Why are we keeping that old coffin here and not burying it?” they would
hear the story again. One day, God will
deliver us from slavery. And history
shows us that the promise was fulfilled, and their dreams did come true.
Joseph instilled another promise into the hearts of the next
generation. If God’s promise to Joseph
purged his character until it was time for his dreams to come true, wouldn’t God
repeat the testimony now thousands of years later, for my generation, and my
children and grandchildren.
