Staying Faithful - Pt 2

And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. (Genesis 39:20-21 ESV).

We pick up the story of Joseph as darkness had swallowed the light again. I am certain he must have dreaded the night in his Egyptian hellhole. It was hard to fight off the hopelessness as he waited the escape of sleep. Day after monotonous day passed with no sign of change. He must have been pacing in his soul. Joseph surely wanted to abandon his faith. He pleaded again and again with God in the dark for deliverance. And he remembered. It was the remembering that kept his hope alive and bitterness at bay. He rehearsed the stories of God that had filled him with awe as a child. God had promised Great-grandfather, Abraham, a child by his barren wife. But he made them wait an agonizing 25 years before giving them Grandfather Isaac. And God had promised Grandmother Rebekah that her older twin, Uncle Esau, would serve the younger twin, Father Jacob. But God had mysteriously woven human deception and immorality into his plan to make that happen. Jacob's smile filled Joseph's mind. It had been nine years since he last saw that face. He must have remembered how his father, Jacob, had been caught in his Uncle Laban's manipulative web for 20 long years. Yet God was faithful to his word and eventually delivered Jacob and brought him back to the Promised Land a wealthy man. Then the strange dreams began. They were unlike any others before. He felt ambivalent about them. After all, his brothers' envy of his father's favor turned homicidal when he inferred that he had God's favor because of a dream. Yet, as foolish as it seemed then, Joseph could not shake the deep conviction that God meant to bring those dreams to pass. And he could not deny the strange pattern he saw in God's dealings with his forebears. God made stunning promises and then ordained time and circumstances to work in such ways as to make the promises seem impossible to fulfill. And then God moved. The common thread Joseph traced through all the stories, the one thing God seemed to honor and bless more than anything else, was faith. Abraham trusted God's word. Isaac trusted God's word. Rebekah trusted God's word. Jacob trusted God. All of them ultimately saw God's faithfulness to his promises, despite circumstances and their own failings. And, there is the real secret. Trust God to keep his promises. When the world seems to be crashing down around you, trust God. He will answer with good!