Door Slammed in Your Face?

When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying

“This is how your slave treated me,” Potiphar burned with anger.

Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison,

The place where the king’s prisoners were confined.

Genesis 39:19-20

When was the last time you had a really bad day?  I’m not talking like a bad hair day, but a really lousy day where everything that could go wrong did go wrong?  It has been quite awhile ago for me, thankfully, but I am well acquainted with the growing despair of a day gone completely awry.  What must it be like to have your life suddenly take a long left turn?

When Joseph’s brothers have had it up to their eyeballs with their younger brother, they drop him in a dry desert cistern, determined to leave him there to die.  Plans change when a group of Ishmaelite traders wander by, and suddenly Joseph is forced to walk his way to Egypt as a slave, chained to the back of a camel caravan. In Egypt, he is sold to Potiphar, captain of Pharaoh’s guard.  God blesses his work for the Egyptian official, and soon Joseph is in charge of his entire estate.  Enter Potiphar’s wife, who wanted to play around with her husband’s handsome slave.  When Joseph repeatedly refused, she accused him of attempted rape, and Joseph lands in Pharaoh’s prison.

At that point, I think I would have had a little anger at God about the turn of my life’s circumstances.  Far, far away from those he loves, reduced to slavery and wrongly accused of a heinous crime, it would not surprise anyone for Joseph to languish in prison, eaten up by misery and bitterness.  No, not this lad.  The pampered prince of Canaan had a far greater depth of character than anyone gave him credit for.  He knew that God was with him, pouring our His blessings even in prison, and he had faith that eventually, God would release him back to his family. Joseph knew one thing above all other:  God would never abandon him.

Close every door to me, keep those I love from me,

Children of Israel are never alone.

For we know we shall find our own peace of mind,

For we have been promised a land of our own.

-Andrew Lloyd Webber