Totally: Getting to Know Our Knowing, Present, Capable, Caring GodSample

God’s nearness to Joseph helped people trust Joseph and provided Joseph with opportunities to develop his God-given talents and skills in preparation for the future God had planned for him. Those who were blessed enough to be connected to Joseph benefitted from the way God chose to bless Joseph.

Joseph was very aware that things were going well for him because of God. As a result, Joseph was not willing to sin against God with Potiphar’s wife. Joseph had learned gratitude and humility in Potiphar’s house, just as God had planned.

Even though Joseph had not given Potiphar any reason to doubt him, Potiphar had Joseph thrown into prison. We know that Potiphar burned with anger when his wife told him the story, but we don’t know for sure whether he believed his wife or was angry that the situation had come up and he had to make a judgment call. Either way, Potiphar had little choice but to punish Joseph.

While Joseph was in prison, God stayed with him and opened up even more opportunities for Joseph to practice supervising people. Joseph may have been discouraged by Potiphar’s treatment of him, but he continued to trust, serve, and work to please God in all circumstances. Joseph’s hope was not in what people could do for him but in Who God was.

While he was in prison, Joseph proved that God had given him the ability to correctly interpret dreams. Two years later, Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt, had a dream that confused and bothered him, but no one in his household could interpret it. One of the men who had benefitted from Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams while in prison remembered Joseph and recommended his help to Pharaoh (see Genesis 40-41:14). Joseph was summoned to interpret Pharaoh’s dream.

After two years in prison, Joseph could have used this opportunity to promote himself and/or force his God-given childhood dream to come true, but he didn’t. Joseph trusted God to work His plan in His own way and timing because God had never left him or let him down. When Pharaoh told Joseph he had heard about Joseph’s gift, Joseph gave God all the credit. No longer the arrogant, self-centered boy he had been, Joseph wanted God to get all the glory for His goodness to Joseph. This being true, God was able to glorify Himself by blessing Joseph.