Are you like most people…you want to know that it matters in some way that you walked this earth?
Not that your name was up in lights, you walked a red carpet or the like…you simply want to make a difference…have an impact…in some way.
What got me thinking about this was reading the life of Joseph in Genesis 37+.
Remember him? Leader-of-Egypt, saved-the-Ancient-Far-East-from-starvation, married-well, palace-living Joseph.
He’s often, rightfully, cited as a premier example of a make-an-impact successful life…but two parts of the story captured my thoughts of late. Two events…the course of which made him the man he became and prepared him for the impact he would have.
First, a Joseph-history:
- The 11th of Jacob’s 12 sons, Joseph was the 1st child of Jacob’s 1st love…Rachel.
- At 17, while working with his brothers, Joseph ”…brought back a bad report about them to their father.” (37:2) The story doesn’t record the brothers actually did anything wrong and the grammar indicates Joseph caused the bad report…he manipulated the facts making his brothers look bad and himself look good.
- Then there’s that coat…Now Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than all his children…he made Joseph an elaborate multicolored coat. When his brothers realized their father loved him more than them, they grew to hate him…(37:3-4) Having lived in a place that actually had winter we made sure our sons had coats. I don’t remember any of them becoming venomous toward another over a coat…ever. Why, then, would a coat cause Joseph’s brothers to suddenly become hate filled? Because that coat was a royal garment, not suitable for working…probably a boss or supervisor’s garment. That coat suddenly confirmed what the brothers suspected…Jacob’s favoritism toward Joseph. Here’s the scenario…a self-serving Joseph with a history of manipulating things to look good becomes the supervisor of his older brothers. Imagine how they felt…”This kid! My boss? I don’t think so!”
- And, of course, Joseph’s dreams (37:5-11)…The way Joseph handled them and the reaction from his brothers and father indicates Joseph couldn’t wait to tell them how great he was going to be.
So alienating was Joseph, his brothers grew jealous of him, came to hate him, couldn’t speak a civil word to him and wanted to kill him. Not the impact we hope to effect in others but that was Joseph’s…and did it get a response.
Joseph’s brothers hit their limit, ripped off his coat…threw him in a crater…and sold him to an Egypt-bound slave trader’s caravan. (They were going to kill him so not a bad alternative, considering.)
A phrase in 37:2, captures the tenor of the story for me…“the lad (Joseph) with the sons (brothers).” It has the feel that a spot-on description of Joseph would be “spoiled brat." You know the kind…an-arrogant-impressed-with-himself-likely-not-a-decent-day’s-work-in-his-life guy. A bad and unpleasant combination. Thanks to that combination Joseph ended up away from family, friends and anything familiar…at the ripe old age of 17.
The trek by camel caravan would have taken 10 – 20 days minimum. Because the story takes turn in Gen. 38, I think it took several weeks longer, if not months. I wonder…how did Joseph use the time? What would you have done?
I’ve walked with enough people, gone from coats to craters to caravans enough and lived long enough to guess…I think accurately.
- After a fear-filled pity party we engage in one of two activities…usually both.
- An anger-filled and possible expletive-laced rant as we rail about those no good so-and-sos who did this to me/us!!!!!!
- As that dust settles and our adrenaline approaches normalcy, if we’re personally secure enough, we engage in some deep, introspective soul searching as we allow Father to shine His light on areas we haven’t previously dared let a dim candlelight near…Discovering things about ourselves that disgust and almost horrify.
- What follows is something akin to “OMG! How could I? What was I thinking? Forgive me Father.”
Here’s the thing…elaborate multicolored coats have the potential to imperceptively infect us with harmful, disease-laced attitudes…attitudes that, left untreated, will debilitate and destroy.
Craters and caravans cause us to face those infections presenting us with two choices…walk out the course necessary to remove the infection or walkout on the course by prematurely climbing out of the crater and jumping off the caravan.
Walking out Father’s full course removes from us things that should have never been there in the first place. Such times are agonizing and scary…It feels like the process will never end and we won’t survive. It does end and more than surviving…we are healed and gain Spirit-born antibodies against those harmful-to-others, debilitating-to-us infections elaborate multicolored coats bring.
But if we walkout, not finishing the course…like failing to complete a prescribed course of medicine…we risk a relapse of the infection. The thing about relapses is they return with a vengeance leaving us, in the words of Jesus, “worse off than before.” The only cure for a relapse is another course…using stronger medicine.
I think that’s what happened to Joseph in that crater and on that caravan…he walked out…completed…Father’s prescribed course. And when he arrived in Egypt scripture records, “The LORD was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did…”(Gen. 39:2)
We all, at times, strut around in coats that are too much for us…sit in craters too deep to climb out…get stuck on caravans going to God only knows where. Coats can be discarded and their infections healed…craters can be overcome…caravan treks do end...and on the other side waits a life that matters. But to get there we must take off the coat, resist climbing out of the crater or jumping off the caravan.
Wherever you are today…the course is laid out for a life that matters…it’s your choice…Walk it out or walk out on it…Healing or relapse?
Father, forgive me where I have allowed the attitudes of multicolored coats to infect. I give myself now to Your prescribed course. Please grant the grace and strength to walk it out. Please give me eyes to see the possibility of what might be when I complete Your course…a life that matters.
In Jesus’ Name…Amen
Blessings…Part 2 next time.
Michael M
PS…If you’re still wondering about this, consider…Why is Gen. 39:2, when Joseph arrives in Egypt having lost his coat, after sitting in a crater and traveling on a caravan, the first time scripture describes Joseph as successful?
