( c) 2023 Mary Ann Wray
“Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams. When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing—and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it. As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.” Genesis 37: 19-28
I used to read this story solely with a sense of horror thinking how terrible it was for Joseph’s own brothers to betray and turn their back on their youngest sibling all because they were jealous of his dream and resented his youthful boastfulness. While this story is hard to fathom in many ways, the Lord showed me another side of it that is redemptive and glorious. The eyes of my understanding were opened to see God’s eternal purpose through Joseph’s pain and rejection.
You see the Ishmaelite’s were distant relatives of Joseph’s clan. As descendants of Abraham, their distant cousin, Ishmael was related to them by their Grandfather’s bloodline. They had a connection that God would later use for His eternal purpose….let me explain a little further.
We know the story of Abraham’s God given promise of a son and that he grew a little impatient in the process and took Sarah’s maid, Hagar to produce his offspring, Ishmael. However, his impatience produced something of his own nature and doing-not God’s nature and promise. Ishmael became a nation of herdsmen and vagabonds. Abraham’s seed multiplied as seed does and produced something not in God’s original plan. God was calling for a nation of rulers and leaders in His Kingdom. Later on, Sarah conceived and they had a son Isaac, meaning laughter. He would be the one to produce the lineage of the nation of Israel-God’s promised seed.
However, what I saw in this account was something I’d missed before. After conceiving my own set of issues caused by impatience, poor judgment and not waiting upon the Lord for His perfect timing in certain situations, I could relate to this story a little better. You see, God used Abraham’s mistake which had produced a lineage of vagabonds along with Joseph’s brothers missteps of hatred and betrayal to carry Joseph to his God given purpose. One mistake or major misstep can truly lead to a cacophony of consequences we don’t want or know how to deal with…but God does!
Only our Heavenly Father has a way of taking all of the junk from our sordid pasts and lack of judgment then uses it all for His Divine purpose and our good. I’ve come to appreciate Romans 8: 28 as never before! The thing we must remember when ‘going through’ is that the Father works all things together for our good and according to the purpose His will!
“In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.” Ephesians 1: 11
Abraham and Sarah learned to laugh in the midst of their mess and so can we. Weeping may endure for the night but joy comes in the morning! In the end, Joseph became the ruler he was destined to become. His vagabond cousins that were produced out of the loins of poor judgment and impatience were used by God to carry Joseph to the place of training for his destined purpose and the salvation of many.
What about you? What are you going through right now that you may think is incapable of producing anything good in your life? God’s plan for Joseph was accomplished through other’s abuse of Him. However, Joseph learned to trust God in those times. There was more peril to follow him in Potiphar’s house, but he learned to see through the eyes of faith; not his circumstances, knowing that God had a purpose and plan in the end for him, his brethren and two nations!
Allow God to refine His purpose and will in your life as you are ‘going through’ knowing that only HE can work it together for good! He loves you!
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” Romans 8: 28-35
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