Joseph Sold Into Egypt by his Brothers, painting by Ted Henninger
But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good,
in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.
Genesis 50:20
In a recent post, Healing the heart: The wounds fill up, I shared, from my personal experience, that wounds of the heart can be used by God to create spiritual depth in our life. Finding true and lasting healing is essentially a process of drawing near to God and it leads to increasing fruitfulness. Today I will continue to share from what I've learned so far about the dynamics of letting the wounds fill up with Christ, so that His fragrance is what future pressing brings out.
I started with a Scripture which contains the words of Joseph, son of Jacob. You have most likely read this Biblical biography or watched a close copy of the bare details of Joseph's life in the movie, The Prince of Egypt (DreamWorks Animation, 1998). Joseph's life story is the main subject thread of the last fourteen chapters of the book of Genesis. It has been to me as troubling as it has been encouraging.
Joseph did not have an easy childhood, nor adulthood, for many years. His mother died sometime during his childhood while giving birth to his brother. He was loved by his father, but was also left to contend with a likely still-jealous stepmother and half-brothers who hated him. The Scriptures say that Joseph was 'hated', that his brothers 'could not speak peaceably to him', that they 'envied' him, and that when he began to share dreams which God had given him, they 'hated him even more'(Genesis 37). At about the age of seventeen years old, his murder was plotted by his brothers. By God's working through a brother, Reuben, his life was spared and he was thrown into a pit in the wilderness. He was eventually sold to slave traders and taken to Egypt. In Egypt, while God's favor caused him to prosper as a household slave and his integrity was spotless, his obedience to God caused him to be accused as a would-be rapist by the adulterous wife of his master. We are told that he gained favor even while imprisoned for this crime which he did not commit, but there was a period of time in which he did endure great trial and suffering. According to Psalm 105:18-19, "They hurt his feet with fetters, he was laid in irons. Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him." His good deeds always seem to go unrewarded time after time. And another hope seemed dashed when the Pharaoh's butler for whom he had interpreted a dream, forgot about him for two whole years and did not bring up his case before the Pharaoh.
Joseph endured hatred from family, separation from the two people he loved most in life, wrongful accusation, slandered character, slavery, loneliness, and continually being rewarded evil for his good for many, many years. Joseph was a man with a broken heart. But somewhere along his path, by his steadfast cleaving to God and his prayers which are not recorded in Scripture, his heart was not only healed so perfectly that he freely offered forgiveness and reconciliation to his brothers, but it was refined and made steadfast in integrity and faithfulness both with God and man. God raised up Joseph in an instant at His appointed time, to make him one of the greatest rulers of ancient Egypt and to fulfill not only a good plan for his personal life, but for the nation of Israel. God's plan for Joseph's life was not thwarted, but fulfilled by the wounds that he endured. And so Joseph declared in hindsight, "But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive" (Genesis 50:20).
Many teach that Joseph became puffed up by pride over his dreams, yet the Scripture in no way indicates this. What we see is a normal and expected curiosity, wonder, and excitement in sharing a strange but vivid dream. Doubtless, he was not a perfect man, but all that we know of him speaks of integrity and godliness. I have had far less goodness and godly character than Joseph in the way I've lived my life. And so many people are filled with bitterness and resentment against God and others, many long years after far lesser incidents than those which Joseph endured. I suggest that one reason is that we have yet to trust God implicitly, in the way Joseph and other attested overcomers did.
In my previous post on this subject, I mentioned that growing intimacy with God and godliness in my character was spearheaded in a dramatic way by my personal experiences of betrayal and rejection time and time again. I see clearly in hindsight that although I was the innocent party in these experiences, some of these incidents in my adulthood were exacerbated by my choices and responses. Another main factor here was that I was predisposed to this type of trauma because of my own upbringing.
I am the product a family that sin and satan had a 'field day' with for many years. It was a stringently religious but love-less and completely affection-less household. Even extended family was just as disconnected from us as we were from them. We were sharing related genes without sharing a 'family' life. There were family secrets, and unknown to outsiders at that time, my household was everything but a 'Christian' family (everyone thought so based on the respect my father had in the church he attended, the strict rules that tried to keep us in check, and the number of Christian books and bibles that littered my home). Personally-speaking, I was an unplanned child, and not appreciated by my father who put a premium on male children. I was constantly treated and disciplined differently and harshly in comparison to my younger brother. At six years old I believed that 'no one loves me.' Even though Christ became very real to me at eight years old, the seeds were planted and events would seem to prove these negative conclusions to be true as time passed. I was socially inept because of my family's lack of healthy communication, affection, and the pervading sense of isolation, but this set up a cycle. I stayed away from events many times because of the sense of social awkwardness, and when I did go out I had to learn from watching others and felt like a bumbling learner. I gave my trust cautiously but I was fiercely loyal.
That brief childhood synopsis illustrates very clearly why I was so predisposed to being wounded in the particular ways I have experienced. I have no doubt that while God carefully put boundaries around me and oversaw the things I would go through, He did in fact allow satan to use people to do some of the wounding that would refine me. God saw what was intended for evil against me, but in His unsearchable wisdom He meant these things for my good. He has healed my heart and life and in that process I came to see how those incidents were converted into bearers of blessings in my life. Just some of the benefits to me included:
- learning to forgive; to pray for enemies and bless those who curse
- learning to love God's way
- growing in discernment
- growing in compassion for others
- learning my weaknesses and vulnerabilities
- learning to let God vindicate me
- learning to pray 'deeply'
- learning to feed on the word of God
- learning to choose the will of God
- learning to trust in and rely on God wholeheartedly
- experiencing and receiving the deep knowledge of God's faithful love
Every one will have their heart broken in this life, and broken more than once, to varying degrees. Sometimes we bear some responsibility for where we find ourselves, sometimes we are totally innocent. For those in Christ, the main thing is to overcome, to let no pain be wasted, and to let no pain defile the contents of our hearts.
This is the first post in a series called Healing the Heart. You can find a link to all the posts in the sidebar under labels, or just click here. If using this link be sure to read from the bottom up because they were posted in a specific order to be most useful to you!
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