God’s Hand in the Hurt: Lessons from Joseph’s Journey

One of the all-time great stories in the Bible is the story of Joseph. If you grew up in church, you probably heard his story in Sunday School before you could read. We’re looking at Joseph’s story today, too. God has much to say to us through the life of this incredible man.

We’ve spent the last couple of posts talking about those times when we face defeat. By defeat, I’m referring to those times when we experience a loss or a setback or a time of pain and suffering.

We can be defeated by health issues, job loss, disappointment, and divorce. A child goes astray. A loved one passes away. You lose your savings due to bad investments. Defeat comes in many shapes and sizes.

We’ve looked at defeat when the loss is nobody’s fault; it just happened. And we’ve examined times when our defeat is on us. We did something and brought this on ourselves.

Today I want to focus on times when we face defeat that’s caused by someone else. We’re minding our own business, and someone else does something evil or stupid or harmful, and we suffer the consequences. Sometimes this can be the most difficult time of suffering we face, when we know we didn’t cause it — yet we still suffer. The person who caused it may not suffer at all, and that adds even more pain and frustration.

So on to Joseph and his story. Joseph was the eleventh son of Jacob and the first son of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. He became a favorite of Jacob (there’s a trend with Jacob playing favorites) and was the owner of the famous “coat of many colors” (Genesis 37:3). Joseph also had some dreams which predicted that one day he would rule over his brothers. Between the favoritism shown to Joseph by Jacob, the gift of the incredible coat, and the arrogance of his dreams, Joseph soon came to be hated by his brothers.

They despised Joseph so much that they sold him into slavery and told his father his favorite son was dead. That’s super cruel. Heartless. What they did to their brother was bad enough, but to bring that pain onto their dad was even worse.

So Joseph went from the top of the heap in his family to the bottom in a single business deal between brothers and slave traders. Even though things looked bleak for Joseph, the Bible mentions something that will become a theme throughout his story:

The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, serving in the household of his Egyptian master. (Genesis 39:2)

Joseph becomes the slave of a wealthy man named Potiphar. Things go swimmingly until Potiphar’s wife takes a special interest in Joseph, and he refuses her advances. She gets mad and lies to Potiphar, telling him that Joseph attacked her, and Potiphar has Joseph thrown into prison. So now Joseph goes from the top to the bottom once again. And just like before:

But the Lord was with Joseph and extended kindness to him. He granted him favor with the prison warden. (Genesis 39:21).

There are those words again, “the Lord was with Joseph.” Even in prison, God is with him.

By the time Joseph is 30 years old, while still in jail, he is miraculously called before Pharaoh to interpret a dream. Joseph explains that the dreams mean there will be seven years with plenty of crops followed by seven years of severe famine. Pharaoh is so impressed with Joseph that he makes Joseph his second-in-command and gives him the responsibility of storing grain during the seven good years and distributing it during the famine.

The seven bad years arrive just as predicted. Back in Canaan, Joseph’s family is starving, so Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to ask for food. Guess who’s in charge of giving people food. When his brothers come before Joseph, they don’t recognize him. It’s been about 20 years since they sold him. He recognizes them, though, but he doesn’t tell them right away.

When Joseph finally reveals to his brothers who he is, he says:

And now don’t be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there will be five more years without plowing or harvesting. God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household, and ruler over all the land of Egypt. (Genesis 45:5-8)

Notice the word “sent” is in those verses three times. It was not his brothers who sent Joseph to Egypt. It was God. In God’s perfect plan, in his providence, he used the sins of Joseph’s family to save that family from the famine, thus keeping the promise God made to Abraham back in Genesis 12:1-3.

And God didn’t just use Joseph to save his family. God used Joseph to save millions of lives during the famine. Joseph is keenly aware that God has been with him and has been at work every step of the way. Even though he was taken to Egypt through the sin of his brothers, it was God who was orchestrating his plan.

When Jacob eventually dies, the brothers start worrying that with him gone, Joseph will take his revenge on them. Maybe he was just waiting for Jacob to die so Dad wouldn’t have to watch Joseph’s vengeance. So the brothers send a message to Joseph, begging him to forgive them for the suffering they’ve caused. Then they come and bow down to Joseph, promising to be his slaves forever if he would just let them live.

Joseph’s reply is one of the most powerful statements in the Bible:

You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people. (Genesis 50:20)

Joseph did nothing wrong, but he was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, falsely accused, and put in prison. But through years of undeserved suffering, God positioned him to save millions of lives and reconcile with his family.

What are some lessons we can learn about defeat from the story of Joseph? There are many, but here are a couple:

God is sovereign even in our defeat. He is in complete control every moment. Sometimes God not only uses but also intends the sinful acts of people for his purpose. They mean it for evil, but God plans it for good.

God invites us to trust him even when we don’t understand. Most of the time, we’ll never know in this life how our defeat fits within God’s purpose. All we can do is trust. And that’s enough.

Each morning in my prayer time, I ask God for his will to be done in every request I send him. I tell him what I want; he knows my heart anyway, so why try to keep it from him? But I also tell him that more than anything, I want to be in his will. I also ask God, when things happen that are far from my will, when I’m defeated or tragedy strikes, to help me understand. And if it isn’t his will for me to understand, to give me the strength to trust him.

No matter what you face in life, you can know that God loves you and he’s working his perfect plan, even when we can’t possibly see what that plan could be. All you have to do is trust.