How Our Suffering Becomes Stepping Stones to Purpose
If you could see the future what would you do differently with your life? Would you open up to people more, or trust certain ones less? Would you pick a different career, major, or marriage? If you could see the future, you would most certainly get off the paths that you know would eventually lead to pain or suffering, and stay on the ones that maximized your comfort and helped you get what you wanted out of life. But would you become who you were meant to be? Or perhaps an even more important question is - would you become who God meant for you to be?
In Genesis 39, we find Joseph at his lowest. He is living out a future he would never have chosen. Now condemned to a lifetime of slavery in an influential Egyptian household, he is a long way from his life as the favorite son. But it is here, we find God most present with Joseph. The author reassures us five times (v. 2, 3, 5, 21 & 23), more than anywhere else in the story, that Joseph is not alone in his suffering - that God is truly with Him. The lower Joseph's life goes, the more the story comforts us with the nearness of God.
We are conditioned, even by our church culture, to see blessings and good fortunes as an indication of God's presence. When things go well we become "excited about all that God is doing." But when things go poorly we rarely anticipate God's presence. Wouldn't it be odd to see someone post on Instagram how their life is falling apart - how their kids are hurting, or their sobriety is struggling, or their marriage is failing, or their job is disheartening, or their mental health is teetering - say they are excited about "all that God is doing" in their life. It's hard to be excited about what God might be doing in us during those moments, even though they are the moments we should anticipate his presence most assuredly. That's what the story of Joseph promises us: God will always be with us in those moments. And even more comfortingly, not only will He always be with us, but He will always be forming us to be who we truly are in Him.
The lower Joseph's life goes, the more the story comforts us with the nearness of God.
And here lies one of the most freeing truths we can ever grasp as followers of Jesus: God's divine protection and care of Joseph does not preclude suffering and heartbreak in his life - and it doesn't in ours either. So why is this truth so freeing? Let me give you two reasons:
Firstly, it frees us from the anxiety that God will punish us for our sins by sending suffering into our lives or withholding blessings. Suffering is not a reliable sign that God is displeased with us. When we experience traumatic loss or pain, it is very natural for us to assume that our past "has finally caught up with us." We falsely correlate suffering with Divine displeasure, but when we go through a dark season this only adds to the weight we already feel. The story of Joseph comforts us by reassuring us that God is as much for us in the valleys as He is on the mountaintops. When we allow the work of His Holy Spirit to transform our hearts with this truth, we can finally be free from the fear that God will abandon us. We no longer have to be plagued by the anxiety that our grief, pain, or loss is somehow an indication of His hand (or lack thereof) in our lives. We can finally get rid of the burden of karma (which is no gospel at all!) and live in the abundance of grace that God has for us.
The story of Joseph comforts us by reassuring us that God is as much for us in the valleys as He is on the mountaintops.
Second, it frees us from the fear that our suffering will have no redeemable purpose. Generally speaking in Western culture, we are wired to see suffering as having no redemptive qualities. We do our best to maximize comfort and happiness and minimize pain and suffering. However, we must also face the reality that our lives will contain much suffering. And it is through this pain, that God often begins to form in us His character. As Paul writes in Romans 8, God works together for the good of those who love Him all things (including our pain and suffering) so that we may be conformed to the image of Jesus. Leighton Ford writes in her book on seeking God in the crucible of life, "God's plan usually takes us to a place where we have serious objections of some sort, places where we feel inadequate - where we confront our own willfulness and our preconceived ideas about how we thought our life would go." And it is here, she contends, that we will neither be given more than we can bear (1 Cor 10:13), but nor will we be led down familiar or comfortable paths. Rather He will make us a "channel for His grace in ways we cannot adequattely predict." And this is precisely what we see happening in Joseph. Joseph begins to "bless" the household of Potipher, the very place of his affliction (Gen 39:5). The promise of God to "bless" all the people of the earth through this family (Gen 22:18) is begining to take form in Joseph. Joseph becomes a "channel of grace" as he "blesses" those around him, all while in a place he would never have chosen for himself. But with God, Joseph's suffering becomes a stepping stone to holy endeavors.
God's plan usually takes us to a place where we have serious objections of some sort, places where we feel inadequate - where we confront our own willfulness and our preconceived ideas about how we thought our life would go.
No matter where we are, what we are going through, or how low we find ourselves, these spaces become launch points out into God's purpose for our lives. To allow this hope to change us though, we must redefine what God's purpose for our lives is - it is to make us more like Him, not to make us comfortable. This means that wherever we find ourselves, and however unfamiliar that place may be, or whatever condition our weary heart may find itself in, we always have access to God's presence and purpose for us. They can never be taken away from us. Circumstances, no matter how dark, or how painful, cannot overcome us. And if we trust God’s love for us here, we will always be led to where He wants us to be and transformed into who He wants us to become.
___________________________
Genesis 39
Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
2 The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. 3 When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, 4 Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. 5 From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. 6 So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”
8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.
But while Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. 22 So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. 23 The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.