“And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, ‘See I have set thee over all the land of Egypt.'” Genesis 41:41
It took thirty years for God to prepare Joseph to be a “savior” of his people, to rise from the depths of a prison where he had for years learned to serve even the lowliest of men, to being the second most powerful man in Egypt, second only to the throne of Pharoah. The transition from the prison to the “palace” occurred in one day. Why and how? It was first and foremost because God had His hand in it. As Joseph would later declare to his brothers who had formerly betrayed him, selling him as a slave into Egypt: “God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and He hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.” (Genesis 45:7,8) The second reason for which this occurred at this time, and in this way, had to do with not only the preparation of Joseph’s heart to learn to be a servant of others, remaining faithful to God, but to embrace the moment, God’s moment for bringing it to pass. Joseph not only was desirous to do so, but completely willing to do it. In essence, God took Joseph from being in prison, in very limited and difficult circumstances to living in a palace, or some dwelling similar, to accomplish through His man, His will, in His time, and in His unique way. He does the same today, for He has not changed.
There is another character in the Bible whose experience was similar to that of Joseph, not so much with regard to the place and time, but the nature and purpose of the event. This man’s name was Job. Here is a man described by God as being, “…none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil.” (Job 2:3) Job was God’s servant, and certainly one that was faithful to God, in some respects, without blemish and fault. However, after Job’s experience of suffering because of the affliction by the hands of Satan, God would bring him forth as a man tested, proven, enlightened as a man of God who had made a marvelous discovery. In speaking to the Lord he says, “…I have uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.” (Job 42:3) He goes on to say, “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (42:5,6) We might ask ourselves the question at this point, “How was Job a prisoner, in prison where he learned difficult things to grasp, but which produced the blessed and peaceful fruit of righteousness? The prison were the limitations of circumstance and understanding, where Job would, like Joseph in some measure, learn great truths of God, His mercy and grace, and also, wonderful things that he did not know. That prison would remain intact, with Job in the center of it, until, like in the case of Jonah, and Joseph, God would speak to the circumstances, and provide a door of escape, giving to each the strength to go through it. With regard to Job, Scripture tells us that “…the Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.
It is nothing for God, in one moment of time, to change one’s prison into a palace, from a place of limitations, suffering, and lack of knowledge, into a palace of liberty and blessing. May God give us grace in the difficult times of life to realize that all is for a higher purpose than we know. Our response is to ask for God’s “wisdom,” which He will freely give.
Dear Father, Be our everlasting Understanding. In Jesus’ name, Amen.