‘The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man.’ Genesis 39:2 NKJV
Being an accepted member of some groups will depend of which island or tribe you belong to. Sadly some employers and some churches do it too. But God doesn’t. Imagine you were Joseph. You share a father with your siblings, but four different mothers have given birth to your brothers and sister along the way. Your dad’s a con artist. He has been one his entire life and everyone knows it. The whole family knows he cheated your uncle out of the inheritance, and then hid behind his mother’s skirts before running off like a coward to avoid being killed. Your great-uncle tricked your dad into marrying your mother’s sister, perhaps by getting your dad so drunk during the wedding breakfast that he didn’t know which sister was which. So he ended up marrying the plain one instead of the pretty one he was in love with. But that didn’t faze him, he just added to the bride list and married both of them! The one he adored couldn’t have kids, so he slept with the nanny to produce some surrogate children. And most of them truly hated their second to littlest brother!
But big doors swing on little hinges, and Joseph’s life is described in one verse: ‘The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man.’ Successful in spite of family dysfunction and betrayal. Successful in spite of slander and 13 years of false imprisonment. And with God on your side, you can overcome your beginnings and succeed too. That’s why the most important thing you can do is to build, maintain, and prioritise your relationship with God.
SoulFood: Ezek 34–36, Luke 20:27–40, Ps 78:1–8, Pr 20:7–10
The Word for Today is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from UCB International Copyright ©