In the face of challenges, how do you respond?

Will you trust God, and do things His way?

The story of Joseph is pivotal in Scripture. It represents the first steps in the promises that God made to Abraham – to make of his descendants a great people; a people with a Promised Land all their own.

But Joseph’s story is full of struggles and disappointments. Why is it that the Scripture does not record any despair from Joseph?

Time after time, Joseph finds himself abandoned, sidetracked, and seemingly forgotten.

But God had a plan, and Joseph was faithful. As he told his brothers when they were finally reunited in Egypt, “it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:8).

Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.  And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.[a]

“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.

Genesis 45:1-8 (NIV)