But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph’s charge, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.
Genesis 39: 21-23
Go to school, work hard, earn good grades, graduate, enter the workplace and begin to climb the ladder of success – that may work for many of us, but how do we respond when the path has more ups and downs than expected?
In our case study of Joseph, we find a man who is growing in skill and responsibility. As a slave he ran the household of an important Egyptian and even though he landed in prison, his responsibilities eventually included running the prison. All along the way, the young man was developing his knowledge and skills in administration – expertise that would eventually serve him well as second in command throughout all of Egypt.
But the most important about Joseph’s life was what Alistair Begg referred to as Joseph’s “God-centered focus.”
“That God-centered focus allows a man or a woman to go to bed at night, put their head on the pillow and fall asleep, a wake into a new day and say, this is the day you have made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. I know I don’t have a job, and I know that is not good, and that’s not so great, and these things have happened. But God, as long as God is God, will be okay.”
Alistair begg
Through it all, God was at work in Joseph’s life. In the passage above we read that “the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor” and “the Lord was with him and whatever he did, the Lord made it succeed.”
Can you look over your past challenges and darkest days and see how you’ve grown through times of challenge and pain?
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