So Joseph has gone from a favorite son to a slave and now to a prisoner.
What happened to the dream, is it dead?
Yes, it is true that the Lord gave Joseph favor with the warden who put him in charge of everything. Joseph is learning leadership and administration.
But let's face it, he is still not free.
He is a prisoner, and far from his dreams.
Do your own dreams feel far off sometimes? Something that perhaps God put into your life, a desire deep inside you. Yet when you look at your circumstances you know that unless God moves, nothing will change and make that happen.
And God doesn't appear to be moving.
Then one day two servants of Pharaoh are thrown into prison with Joseph and have dreams. Joseph interprets these dreams for each of them.
The dream for one of them, a baker, doesn't end so well, but the other, a cup bearer who has Pharaoh's ear, will be restored to his place of status. Joseph asked only one thing, "But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon." Gen 40:14-15 (NIV)
Hope must have risen in Joseph. How could it not? Now was the time he would get out. God told him what the dream meant, this man has the ear of the Pharaoh. It looks like a pretty good plan. He must have been thinking, "any day now my life will get better..."
But Joseph can't catch a break at this point.
"Now the third day was Pharaoh's birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh's hand— but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.
The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him." Gen 40:20-23 (NIV)
Why?
Joseph has a hope of freedom and a better life and then he is forgotten.
Why?
This waiting will last another two years.
Perhaps, as with you and I, the Lord was not done working in Joseph yet.
Joseph has to become a different man. Not a boy who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But a man who is seasoned and ready to save a nation.
Think of Justin Bieber (I know, painful, but just go with it). Here is a talented kid with fame and influence, and seemingly no character. Tat some bible verses on his body, he's still a punk. Because fame can do that when you are not ready for it.
Joseph may have felt his time was completed and he is ready, time to get out. But it is not up to the clay to tell the potter when there has been enough heat for it to be hardened. The clay doesn't get a say, and neither do we.
Because only the Lord knows what has to be worked out of us, and I suspect as long as we insist we are ready, the more work has to be done.
But the hope is here, in this promise.
" And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns." Phil 1:6
All that matters is that we are conformed into the image of Christ, and our God will do whatever it takes to get us there.
Joseph's life is about to get very interesting!
