Joseph Moments  

Don't be discouraged.  It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.  ~Author Unknown

I love the story of Joseph.  When Joseph was seventeen he was tending flocks with his brothers and he came back to give Jacob a bad report about his brothers.  Now I don’t know what report he gave but I am sure his brothers considered him a tattle tale and since Jacob gave him a special robe showing favoritism to Joseph, that didn’t endear him to his older brothers. 

Then Joseph starts having dreams and proceeds to tell his brothers about the dreams.  In the dreams he describes how his sheaf of wheat rose up and the others gathered around his and bowed down to Joseph’s.  Then he tells the second dream where the sun and moon and eleven stars bowed down to him.  I am sure to his brothers he seemed to be a know-it-all and even Jacob rebuked him for thinking that they would all one day bow down to him. 

Have you noticed how extremely long it takes for God to work in our lives and change us?  We start out ignorant and full of ourselves and then along come hard knocks.  In Joseph’s case he was thrown into a well by his own brothers, sold for 20 shekels of silver, sold again to Potiphar and eventually sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. What we need to realize is that God was working on Joseph.  He was in training, sort of like boot camp. 

The thing I noticed about Joseph was he began with a talent of interpreting dreams at the age of seventeen and through this same talent he was put in charge of the whole land of Egypt by the time he was thirty. By my calculation he spent thirteen years in boot camp to eventually save God’s people.

We often get frustrated and impatient when it comes to God’s timing.  I have learned patience when it comes to God, because he knows me much better than I do or at least he views me realistically.  When I really evaluate myself I figure I still have about 10 years of boot camp and that may not be enough.

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, thank you for using trials in my life to teach me how to follow You.  I am often impatient and want to run ahead when I am not ready for what You want me to do in this life.  I am blessed to have you working on me daily to remove my stubbornness and impatience and all the other qualities that are not beneficial to Your Kingdom.  Please keep me in training until You feel I am ready because then I can do all things through God who strengthens me.  

Scripture: Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. James 1:2-8