Endure: Building Faith for the Long RunSample

Joseph: Wading through suffering

Suffering has the power both to wreck lives and strengthen faith. In suffering, we hear the groaning of creation, but we also see the power of God made known in our weakness. The suffering of humanity and the sovereignty of God are not divorced from one another. In fact, as we are about to see in the life of Joseph, suffering can be how the plans of God are executed. Let us look at the suffering of Joseph to glean some truths about how we can press on through the grueling times we face in our faith.

And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

It would be fair to describe the life of Joseph as a roller coaster at this point. He went from favored son to slave. From slave to having authority over the house of one of Pharaoh’s officers. From authority to a prison cell. From a prison cell to serving one of the most powerful men in the world by interpreting his dreams.

When life takes a significant detour, and our plans fail, it is human nature to want to quit. Even in the seasons of life that seem like a total grind, God sees what you are doing. He sees your faithfulness with the little He has given you and desires to entrust you with more.

And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.

It is not that God turned the choice of Joseph’s brothers into a good thing. It is that God’s means of saving both Joseph and his brothers were their betrayal of him. God used the lies of Potiphar’s wife to put Joseph in prison with members of Pharaoh’s service. Those lies put him in a position to stand before Pharaoh to interpret his dreams. God did not err and was not absent in Joseph’s suffering; He was orchestrating it.

Some of us may cringe at the thought of God being sovereign in our suffering, but that is the best news in regard to our fate. God’s sovereign works mean that our suffering is not accidental. The great news of God’s sovereign work is that we are a part of His plan for His purpose. We are not tied to the ebb and flow of happenstance; we are living in the midst of a global gospel plan.