There are many lessons to be gleaned from the life of Joseph, whose doting father made him a coat of many colors, and jealous brothers showed their true colors by selling him into slavery. Yes, they really did! (See Genesis 37-50.) What we are looking at now, though, is the encouragement we can receive by glancing over his life to remind us of some of the ways God was faithful to him. He used trials and tests to strengthen and bless him. He will do the same for us when we trust Him, no matter what.

Joseph did well even in slavery, and his master made him ruler over his house. However, the master’s wife was apparently impressed with the young and capable Joseph also! Through no fault of his own, Joseph found himself in another pit. It took years to get out.

One can only imagine his bewilderment as he waited for his freedom. He surely had plenty of time to pray and get to know his God. (The Bible doesn’t say specifically, but we know God comforted and encouraged him. He definitely had not forgotten him.) Finally, through divine intervention, the big day came. All in one day, Joseph got out of prison and was made the second most powerful man in the land! Talk about promotion!

Years later, by divine design, Joseph was face to face with his brothers and had the power to make them miserable, torture them, or take their lives. He could have just watched them starve to death. There was only one other person who could stop him, and certainly no one who would. But Joseph knew who he answered to, and Pharoah was not his Lord.

Read Genesis 45:4-8:

“Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” NIV

Joseph had great dependence on God all his life, though there was surely much he didn’t understand. What he could say as he looked back over his life was that, in every circumstance when it looked like God must have looked away from him, God had him.

He had him when he was sold away from his home and family to strangers!

God had him when he was thrown into prison for something he didn’t do.

God had him when Joseph’s hopes were dashed after helping someone else, and being forgotten when he had the opportunity to speak up for Joseph.

But God didn’t forget.

God had him when he gave him the interpretation to Pharaoh’s dream that got him out of prison and made him a ruler in Egypt.

God had him when he gave him the means to save his whole family from starvation and move them to Egypt, seeing his aged father again.

And God had him when it was time to leave this world for the next.

He depended on God’s promises to the Israelites to give them their own land, signified by his insistence that his bones would be moved with the Israelites (Genesis 50: 24-25).

God did, through Moses, lead them out of Egypt and give them their own land, the land of Israel. Joseph’s earthly remains went with them. (Exodus 13:19)

God has not forgotten us either. We can trust Him, even when we don’t understand. He’s got us!

Verse to Remember:

The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my hands He has rewarded me. 2 SAMUEL 22:21 AMP