The story of Joseph in Genesis has always been one that has spoken to me in different seasons of my life. Recently, I’ve been going through some challenges and tough circumstances, and these trials have brought me back to this familiar story.
Yet this time, the story yielded something new. Isn’t that always like God? His Word is alive and active, which means it’s not caged to our past understandings or even interpretations. It teaches us of what God has said, but also, it always reveals to us what God is saying now. It dawned on me that when Joseph entered Egypt, it was the beginning of the end. He would never again leave this foreign land. He would never get to go back to his hometown. His former life was gone forever.
When I realized this, honestly, it made me sad. Joseph had no idea that the day he would be sold into slavery by his brothers was going to be his last day home. It would be his last day of “normal”. He never got a chance to prepare himself for what would change his life forever. He never got a chance to say goodbye. And he never would.
Isn’t that like life? Things come at us that can change our lives forever in just a moment. Difficulties can be around the corner at every turn. I can’t imagine what it was like for Joseph. I wonder how I would feel or respond in his place. What would my heart be like when things seem like they are finally getting better, but instead they actually take a turn for the worst? Now, God is good and displays His faithfulness. He does redeem Joseph. He does promote Joseph. Joseph sees every dream come into fruition. The dreams were fulfilled! But it was all once again in the context of Egypt. What is gone still remains gone.
Could I be okay with all the promises coming to pass, but in the context of a circumstance and place I never thought I would be in? Could I really be happy with my wildest dreams coming true at the expense of tremendous loss? And through this, I ponder and reflect as God refines me. In the wrestling, God forms and molds. He is helping me let go of what I call “necessities” to my dreams by calling them what they really are, which are simply my preferences. In some cases, these “necessities” are even straight up my idols. But I can’t help but to look back. I can’t help but to want to dwell on what’s been taken from me. What I no longer get to have. Don’t get me wrong, God has so much compassion for us, yet His greatest concern is less about my history, and more about my destiny. So I look forward again to the One who leads me on. The One who makes all things new.
I’m not sure if anyone likes pain, but I especially hate pain! I hate difficulty. I hate that my heart is capable of feeling such depths of sadness. I hate that I cling to it sometimes even more. Yet somehow as I feel the reality of what’s stirring in me, God meets me there. He asks me, “Can it be that the place where you feel like isn’t where you’re supposed to be and the place you feel like you don’t belong is exactly the place that becomes your Egypt?” It can. Of course, it can. Can I accept that? It will be hard, but I can. And as I say “yes”, I hope that I too can say, ”So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.” (Genesis 45:8) Even more so, like Joseph, I want to be able to declare, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20)
So I say “yes” to the familiar dreams that have given me hope through the darkest times of my life. But also to the foreign lands God has placed me in now. God, the One who reminds of us dreams we so easily forget and leads us into foreign lands we don’t want to enter. You can bless me anywhere, even in my “Egypt”. I trust You. I surrender. You are with me. You are for me. Amen.