I was getting in the Word, reading about Joseph in Genesis. We've all heard his story thousands of times.
He was his dad's favorite son and his brothers hated him for it, so they sold him into slavery. Joseph was then imprisoned for a long time, but while he was there, God gave him the opportunity to translate the dreams of some of his fellow prison mates. The translations that God gave him ended up being accurate and Joseph simply asked that these men remember him when they are freed from prison. One of those men is killed but the other returns to his job as the king's cup bearer. Unfortunately for Joseph, he forgot all about him. Years later, the king has a dream and none of the dream tellers can tell him what it means. The cup bearer finally remembers Joseph and tells the king about him. So Joseph is called to interpret the king's dream and he turns out to be very accurate! (It's crazy how God works) So the king appoints Joseph to be his second in command! There is a ton of other awesome things that happen (read Genesis 37-50) but I'm just going to share what God laid on my heart during this part.
The Lord was TOTALLY speaking to my heart in one particular verse in this story and I just really wanted to share it with who ever reads this! Genesis 39:21 says "But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him His faithful love."
Wait, did I read that right? Prison and faithful love were spoken in the exact same verse. That simply doesn't make sense!
But that's exactly what God wants to show us. He doesn't make sense. Joseph had done absolutely nothing wrong and was in prison for YEARS, but "the Lord was with him and showed him His faithful love".
We so often find ourselves in situations we don't like or don't feel God would want us to be in. If I was Joseph, I would be so angry that God would allow such injustice to happen against me. I'm sure he had his moments of dispair down in that prison, but all that matters is that God showed him His faithful love. Even when he was trapped inside a prison by no fault of his own, God's love was faithful.
God's love and faithfulness doesn't look the way we want it to sometimes. Actually most of the time. We want everything to work out flawlessly and all of our dreams met instantly. And then we question God's faithfulness if that's not how our life looks.
But if we take a second to step into the Word and see how life was for most of the people we see in the Bible, we'd see that is never the case. God takes them to crazy places and does insane things through them, all along asking them to trust Him and Him alone. Why should we want our lives to be any different? We need to give every single day over to Him and trust His will is far above our own. Even if that means we'll be in prison for years and years, the Lord will be with us and God will show us His faithful love. Beautiful! How could I ask for more?
