A Time of Testing & Confinement

1/9/2008 10:14 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                 Focus:  A Time of Testing; Confinement

Bible Reading & Meditation                        Reference:  Genesis 42:17

            Message of the verse:  “17 So he put them all together in prison for three days.”

            As I read this account of how Joseph treated his brothers it makes me think that he must have had a plan for what he would do when his brothers came down to buy the grain that they needed to survive on.  I also believe that God was the one who gave this plan to Joseph, for it was God who had given Joseph two dreams so long ago that had not been fulfilled as of yet.

            Joseph puts his ten brothers in jail, or in confinement so that they could experience a little of what he had gone through, and this time in jail made them reflect on what they had done to Joseph and caused them to think that perhaps what they had done to Joseph had something to do with what was happening to them at this time.  I have to keep reminding myself of a couple of things as I go through this story and that is that God had a plan to send Messiah to the earth, and that plan involved the nation of Israel, and at this time there was only a family of about seventy people who would eventually become the nation of Israel.  The other thing that I think of is that these were real people, people who lived in similar ways that we do, people with sinful natures, but not really given a lot of special abilities on their own.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I would think that it was hard on Joseph to put his brothers in the confinement that he put them in, and I also think that it was God who lead him to do this difficult thing, but he had to make sure that their sin was dealt with before he would let them know who he really was.  There is another thing that speaks to me as I think about this and that is that God surely gave Joseph the grace to not take revenge out on his brothers, for that would have been easy to do, but God surely showed Joseph that all of the things he went through was for good even though it did not seem like it at the time. 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to trust the Lord each and every day even though it is difficult at times to see what it is He is doing.