Recently, I have been looking at the Bible in a totally
different way. While doing our family
devotions the other night, we read the story of Samson. At the end of the story, the author
paralleled it to Jesus and to His story.
The story of Hosea also is a story about how God loves Israel so
much. This week, I was asked to read a
section of the Bible for our Life Group.
It is a story that I am so familiar with, I can literally say, or rather
sing, it in my sleep. It is the story
of Joseph. Throughout high school, Joseph
and the Amazing Technicolored Dream Coat was by far my favorite musical,
performing in it 5 shows and watching it over 30 if you include all the shows
that I attended. Needless to say, I am
very familiar with this story.
At first, when I was assigned this section, I was thinking
to myself, this will be easy, I can just re-tell the story and be done. This morning, I realized that God had
something else in store for me completely.
I encourage you to read Genesis 37. It isn’t that long and it is a good
read. It is about a young boy that was
born to a very old father. The father
was very excited about this child because this child was born to him from his
first wife, who they thought was barren, and at a very old age. This chapter starts when he is a teen. To
show his joy, he had a special coat made for Joseph and placed it on him. Joseph had A LOT of brothers at this
time. Jacob had taken both Rachel and
Leah’s servants as wives and so between 4 wives he ultimately ended up with 12
sons. The brothers were jealous of the
favoritism shown to Joseph by his father.
I would be jealous too.
Joseph had dreams about his future; dreams that shocked
people and made them dislike him even more.
He had dreams where everyone in his family was bowing down to him. He had decided to share this with his family,
which only made the brothers more mad.
One day, Jacob sent Joseph to the fields to check on his brothers. He had to look all over for them and when he
found them, they stuck him in a dry cistern and then, one brother decided not
to kill him, but to sell him so they took him out and sold him into slavery for
20 pieces of silver. How they split
that fairly between 11 of them, who knows.
Maybe they didn’t clue in Ruben since he was not around during this
time.
Fast-forward with me in the Bible… there was a little boy born to a virgin mother. Someone that God loved an awful lot. This was God’s special child. He loved him. Now at that time Israel was considered to be God’s child, as
Jesus was born and growing up some of Israel got jealous of the fuss being made
about Him. They would try so hard to
make God love them in ways that didn’t matter, they would parade around the
streets and show how much they knew about God.
They saw His knowledge at 12, they heard Him saying weird things and
visions of the future and they didn’t like what they were hearing. Jesus had a lot to say that wasn’t very popular. Finally, his “brothers” devised a plan. The convinced one of Jesus’ followers to
betray Him. Hewas sold for 20 pieces of
silver by someone who was jealous of Him.
He was very loved by His Father.
If you go forward in the book of Genesis, back to the story
of Joseph, Jacob was so sad, he was so sad that his son was gone. He mourned.
But… God had a plan for Joseph, he was going to save a whole nation
through him. He was going to use Joseph
to feed so many people, to save their lives, not without pain though. He reunited Joseph with his father and
family, and they were able to live out the rest of their lives together.
Looking back at Jesus.
God mourned when Jesus died, but Jesus had to be sold so that we could
be saved. He had to suffer so that we
could have everlasting life. Jesus was
reunited with His Father too, he wasn’t left to die and stay dead, just like
God didn’t desert Joseph and leave him to die in the wilderness in a
cistern. He had a plan.
Even though the Old Testament doesn’t necessarily say Jesus’
name (it does say Emanuel which means God With Us), His stories are foretold
through all the books of the Bible. His
story is the best story that could ever be told, and has been true through out
time.
God has a plan for you.
For your life. Don’t worry if
you are in a storm right now, don’t worry if you feel defeated and broken, just
know that there is a reason for your season.
And now, I would like to end with…
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