Real Hope: Discovering Hope Through JosephSample

Never Forgotten

After Joseph interpreted the baker’s and butler’s dreams, he asked the butler, whom he knew would soon be promoted back to his job, to remember him. "Remember me..."

But once the butler was restored to his position, he forgot all about Joseph (40:23). Each day came and went with no word about Joseph’s release.

Psalm 105:19 says of this time that "the word of the Lord tested him." Those two silent years in the prison, after his disappointment with the butler, were a time of learning to hope in God. Sometimes God strips us of every human hope, until our hope is centred on Him alone.

Though Joseph remained in prison for two more long years, until the butler finally remembered him, Joseph grew closer to God and grew in his faith on Him.

Those two years were not wasted years. God, the master weaver, was moulding Joseph’s character. At precisely the right moment, God gave Pharaoh his dream – bringing all those strands together so that all was working according to His schedule. Joseph’s trust in the sovereign God carried him through many bleak days in the prison.

Nothing is ever wasted; you are never forgotten, and nothing is ever outside of God’s sovereignty.

Written by Heidi Wysman