“I AM JOSEPH!” (Part Two)
MERRY MONDAY BY PARRIS BAILEY
“Then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried, Cause every man to go out from me. And there stood no man with him, while Joseph made himself known unto his brethren. And he wept aloud: and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live?” – Gen 45:1-5
Last Monday I mentioned how much the story of Joseph has spoken life to me. It’s a story of complete restoration. Its when the worst case scenario happens in your life and God puts it all back together in a way that only glorifies Him. As many of you know I am able to spend some time hanging out at Marysong Restoration Center. The story of Joseph seems to seep from the walls. One particular girl that stands out at the moment is Judy. She is in third phase now, she got cleared of all her felony charges and works in our church daycare (Her heart’s desire). On top of that she has been reunited with her daughter (14) and her daughter just got water baptized last Friday night at our Beyond the Grave performance. Never ending stories of new beginnings.
Let’s read what the Expositor Bible says about the story of Joseph. “These brother’s of his were to look away from themselves to something greater. They were to consider the inexhaustible goodness and grace of God, which could bend even the worst facts to his ultimately redeeming purpose. They would see that his purpose was not to destroy life but to preserve it; that to those who defied his purpose he stood as with a drawn sword across their path, but that to those who were ready to learn their lesson he was like a beckoning hand. Henceforth they would not think of the greatness of God as something to be taken advantage of, but as terrible-yet also healing-in it’s contrast and rebuke. Looking back, Joseph could say that the whole long course of his life had been shaped by God. It was God who had brought him where he was, not chance, nor men’s choices, good or evil. The very things that seemed at the moment the blindest and most cruel strokes of fate had brought his life fulfillment. God’s purposes like grain, can grow in the dark as well as in the day, under rain as well as under sun. Joseph let the invitation of the generous God lead him out of what could have been a cramped and corroding self-love. In each test of courage, Joseph was becoming a bigger man. In one sense the Joseph they had known was dead. Here was a new man, the lad grown into a man of such dimensions that he seemed a different person. He had let himself be used by the purposes of God and so he had become great. He dared to believe in his dreams through all the dark days.”
I pray we too will let ourselves become bigger through the circumstances of life.