Joseph's Other Journey

I’ve been reading the story of Joseph (from the Old Testament) and one thing I’ve never noticed is how much he changes throughout his life. His story spans 13 chapters so I can’t write the whole thing down (I could but no one, myself included, would want that), but I will summarize. We first meet Joseph in Genesis Ch. 37 as a cocky and overly bold teenager; he then is sold into slavery and for the first time reading it you wonder “Why is this in here? What could God do with this kid?” Well, God works in amazing ways, and the first glimpse of hope we get is when Joseph refuses Potiphar’s wife’s advancements which sends him to jail (for more see Genesis chapter 39). Then the Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker were jailed and had strange dreams that Joseph was able to interpret, still his cocky self, he didn’t credit God and instead looked to the baker to put a good word in for him. Unfortunately the baker forgot costing Joseph a full two years. Then the Pharaoh has a strange dream and the baker says “Hey Pharaoh, I remember this kid in jail who told me my dream and was right! Why not go to him?” So Pharaoh does and this is the response he gets from Joseph “I cannot do it… but God will give Pharaoh the answer He desires.” Genesis 41: 16. Wow, first we get a picture of Joseph walking around as a kid claiming he will be better than his entire family, then he interprets someone else’s dream but takes the credit and then tells Pharaoh that only God can do it.. Joseph fully realizes that it was all God’s plan when he tells his brothers (in a dramatic meeting in Ch. 45) that “But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God” 45: 7-8. Essentially this “Hey guys, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking here and this is it, God was in charge all along, it was not you but Him and if it weren’t for all that happened we wouldn’t be here.” Playing off the earlier theme, it took time for Joseph to fully understand God’s plan and to do it he needed to get away, he needed to escape success and lose what he had in his comfy home as daddy’s favorite to take on the leadership role God had in mind. God couldn’t use Joseph at the age of 17, but after time and trials Joseph was fully ready, God does work on us too, He lets trials in our way so that we may grow to know Him and live the lives He mapped out that are truly amazing.