January 15, 2022: Day 12 – Genesis 42-47

I legitimately have a hard time getting through these chapters without my eyes tearing up.  The reunion of Joseph and his brothers is incredibly touching to someone who has three brothers and can’t imagine being apart from them for years and then finally coming together again.  The most important verses in these chapters, and really one of the most important lessons in all of Scripture is found in 45:4-9.

Let’s spend some time in these verses.  “God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth…So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”  The perspective of Joseph is not only correct, but incredibly dispassionate.  What I mean, is, yes, I know he is a babbling fool during all of this, what I mean is that he was somehow able to take into perspective his brothers shoving him in a pit, selling him in slavery, sold to the head of the guards of Pharaoh, seduced by a wife, thrown into prison, forgotten by the cupbearer and then finally being put in charge of all of Egypt.  

So much wrong has happened to Joseph that it would have been so easy for him to focus on the incredibly terrible and tragic things that have happened in his life.  But he was able to put it within the context of Romans 8:28 where Paul tells us: “We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” 

What a lesson for us that in the midst of our tragedies how do we see the hand of God working so that we are led to a point where we can say: “It was not you who sent me here, but God.”  He is basically saying, God sold me into slavery so that all of Israel could be saved.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I know it now.  Just powerful.  Simply powerful.