The Servant Who Wouldn't Bend

(Genesis 39)

Joseph was far, far from home.

His own brothers had sold him away, like he was a thing you could hand to a stranger and forget. Now he lived in Egypt, in a strange house, in a country where no one knew his name, where no one called him son.

But God came too.

You couldn't see him. There was no voice from the sky, no angel standing in the doorway. Just Joseph, sweeping the floors and carrying the heavy jars and doing his work in a faraway land. And the Lord was with him, right there in the middle of an ordinary day.

And things began to grow.

Whatever Joseph's hands touched seemed to flourish, from the fields all the way to the storerooms. His master noticed. "I can trust this one," he said, and he placed everything he owned into Joseph's care. Far from home, Joseph was still not alone.

Then came the hard part.

The master's wife wanted Joseph to do a wrong thing, a thing that would hurt the master who trusted him. Every day she asked. And every day Joseph said no.

"How could I do something so wicked?" he said. "How could I sin against God?"

Even with no one watching, Joseph knew Someone was near.

So one day she caught him by his coat. And Joseph did a brave thing. He ran. Right out the door he ran, and he left his coat behind in her hand. He chose to do right, even when doing right was about to cost him everything.

Then came the part that does not seem fair. She told a lie about him, a big, cruel lie, and she held up his coat as if it proved her story. Long before, his brothers had used his beautiful coat to tell a lie too. And Joseph, who had done nothing but good, was thrown into prison.

Have you ever been blamed for something you did not do? Punished when you were the one trying to be good? It makes your chest go tight and hot. It feels so wrong. And it is wrong.

Joseph sat in that dark prison, far from home, locked away for nothing he had done.

And now come the most important words in the story: the Lord was with him there.

Even in the prison, even in the dark, God did not leave him for one single moment. Right there in the lowest place, the Lord stayed beside Joseph, and was kind to him, and never let go.

Hold on to that.

Because one day God would come closer still. One day God would put on skin and bone and step right into our world himself, and his name would be Jesus. Jesus, too, would be told lies about. Jesus, too, would be handed over by people he trusted. Jesus would go into the darkest, most unfair place of all.

And he would go on purpose, to be with you, so that in any dark or unfair place you would never, ever have to be there alone.

And God was not finished with Joseph. Down in that same prison, two of the king's own servants would soon be locked up beside him, each troubled by a strange dream in the night, dreams only God could explain.

The Lord was with Joseph. And that was only the beginning of how far God was willing to go to be with you.