Joseph and our lives
Let me tell you the story of Joseph. This is a story that we find both in the Bible and the Qur’an (Koran). It is a story for all people, everywhere, at all times. It is your story as well.
Joseph was one of the youngest sons of a man named Jacob, and Jacob really liked Joseph. He liked Joseph so much that Joseph’s older brothers became jealous of him. Jacob had given Joseph a special coat (a “coat of many colors”), and one day, when the brothers were out in the field, they saw young Joseph coming toward them wearing his special coat. All at once they made a quick plan to kill Joseph. They planned to take the bloody coat to their father and explain that a wild animal had killed him.
However, just as they were deciding how to commit the crime, a group of traveling merchants came by, and the brothers decided to sell their brother as a slave. Then they killed a goat and spattered the goat blood on the special coat. They were done with their pesky brother, and they had some extra money from selling him as a slave.
The merchants took Joseph to Egypt where they easily sold Joseph as a household slave. Joseph was smart, and he organized the household in ways that really pleased his new owner. Joseph was now on his way up. However, Joseph was also a good-looking young man, and his owner’s wife wanted him. When he wouldn’t go with her, she framed him, and his owner had him put in prison. Things had been looking up for Joseph, and now they were looking down again.
Two of Joseph’s fellow prisoners had strange dreams, and Joseph was able to explain the meanings of the dreams. The dream of one of the prisoners indicated that that man would soon be set free, and Joseph hoped the man would help him get a release. He promised to, but then he forgot. Once again Joseph had hopes, but then they fell apart.
Time passed, and the king had a strange dream that no one could explain, and now the ex-prisoner remembered Joseph, and told the king that Joseph might know the meaning of the dream. This was Joseph’s big chance.
The king’s dream told about the future. Egypt would produce very good crops for seven years, then Egypt would have seven years of crop failures. Joseph explained to the king that Egypt needed to save food during the good years so that people would have food to eat during the bad years, so the king put Joseph in charge of all of the food in the entire country.
Finally, back home, Joseph’s family had run out of food, and Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt hoping to get something to eat. They didn’t recognize their brother, who was now second-in-command to the king, but Joseph recognized them. What do you think he did?
He tested their loyalty, but then he welcomed them and gave them a new home.
I said this is your story. What I meant is that every one of us has good times and bad times, but if we are faithful to God, God will help us work it all out.
In Joseph’s case, God knew that Jacob’s family would need to find refuge
somewhere. God saw the possibility in Joseph, but young Joseph was too
self-centered to serve God well. His
times of trial with his brothers and as a household slave and as a prisoner
helped him to think about what’s really important in life, and allowed him to
become a person who could do God’s will.
For every one of us, sometimes
our self-centeredness makes it hard for God to use us. A Scout is obedient, and the most important one for us to
obey is God, but if we’re trying to obey our own desires, we can’t obey God.
Young Joseph with the fancy coat was following his own way, and not ready
to obey God. Later, when he rejected his master’s wife, he showed
potential. At that point he was
obeying God, but his will wasn’t yet totally focused on God. Finally, Joseph was really ready to obey God, regardless of
the cost.
“A Scout is obedient” is not an easy point on the Scout Law. We sometimes struggle with it, asking why we have to obey. If we stick with God, we will finally see why obedience is important, and we will learn better how to follow God.
References:
Bible: Genesis, chapter 37 and chapters 39-47.
Qur’an: Sūrah 12, Yūsuf.
NOTE: This rewriting of the Joseph story as a meditation has been done by Richard E. Davies (copyright ©2007).