Chapter 41 - The Cycle

A few weeks ago, my counselor Chuck asked my men's group a simple question:

"How did Joseph break the dysfunction that had hurt his family for generations?"

I honestly had never thought about that. I believed that from Abraham down to Joseph was a long line of pure holiness, but I was wrong.

Abraham lied and prostituted his wife. Not once, but twice. He doubted God's ability to provide a child so severely that he started another family with his maidservant Hagar. Isaac repeated the same mistake by whoring out his wife too. He also created a household where he had a favorite son and his wife had a different favorite son. He was not renamed by God. My friend Tim pointed that out. His father Abraham received a new name. His son Jacob did too, but not Isaac. Jacob and Esau were a mess, with Jacob stealing Esau's birthright and then using his family as a buffer against his brother's vengeance. Jacob then proceeds to repeat his father's mistake by creating a favorite son, Joseph.

One can only wonder what would have happened to Joseph if he had stayed in that environment. Have you ever met someone that is coddled and doted on and protected from every problem in the world? Have you ever met a spoiled child you admired? It is hard to believe that the third generation dysfunction of Isaac could have raised a new generation of holiness in Joseph. So what happened? How did Joseph turn out into an awe-inspiring man of God in charge of Egypt?

He suffered. He was sold into slavery. He spent years in a dungeon. He hit his bottom and found God waiting to lift him up. He was refined by the trials and tribulations of his life.

I do not like suffering. I do not like hard times or wish them upon anyone. I think God works through blessings and that going through suffering is not the answer to all of life's challenges. But in my 32 years, I cannot dismiss the clarity of God's voice when all other distractions are removed from my life in the middle of a crisis.

And though we're jumping ahead, I want to look at periods of pain like Job did in chapter 23: 9-10:

When he is at work in the north, I do not see him;
when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.
But he knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

"How did Joseph break the dysfunction that had hurt his family for generations?"

He came forth as gold.