Last week, we saw how Joseph shared his tall dreams with his dad and family members. Satan will not fold his hands, allowing you to fulfil your vision. He will do his uttermost to frustrate it. Joseph was not an exception. He paid for sharing his. His brethren hated him for his dreams and therefore schemed to kill him. They knew how to conceal it from their dad, and would thus pretend that he was killed by a wild animal. ‘Let us see how his dreams will come to pass,’ they said. God, however, thwarted their evil plans.
It was also for that reason that Satan sent his daughter, the amorous wife of Potiphar, to entice him and force him to sexual relationship with her. Joseph refused to oblige her. To him, it was wickedness and grievous sin against God and Potiphar, his master. It is still the same today. The Church, in the middle age, executed an artist, Leonardo DaVinci, for his vision about airplanes. The Church could not imagine how God and man would be staying together in the sky! A few years later, the airplane was invented. Some people will oppose your vision merely out of ignorance and some, out of envy, especially, where they could not deliver.
When Satan saw that his brethren did not kill him and that he refused to compromise his faith, by committing fornication, his next strategy was for the Chief Butler, his friend in prison, to forget him there, when things were well with him. Joseph, after interpreting his dream and assuring him of his discharge from jail the next day, had pleaded with him to remember him and to help in bringing him out from jail. He did not honour his promise. He forgot him. It is usual for some people to forget things that are not important to them. Who has ever gone to work on his wedding day because he forgot the date? Who has ever forgotten his surname, when writing a cheque? Well, it is possible to be forgotten by man but God will never forget His children.
Imagine what would have happened if the Chief Butler had remembered Joseph. He would, perhaps, have told one of Pharaoh’s officers about a youth in jail, arraigned for attempting to rape Col. Potiphar’s wife. Through his plea and influence, the officer might bring him out and employed him in Pharaoh’s garden as a labourer, warning him never to repeat what he tried to do with his master’s mistress. The officer would make sure that he would not have access to his wife and daughters. God rather created a dramatic scenario that made Joseph come flambouyantly and be known, not only by everybody but by the monarchy and the nobility. It was Pharaoh, who sent for him and he arrived, not as a prisoner, not as Potiphar’s slave, but as a VIP to Pharaoh.
Joseph, as the Prime Minister, introduced good Economic measures based on Pharaoh’s dreams and his [Joseph’s] interpretation of them. He built stores all over the land for the crops harvested during the seven years’ of boom. He exchanged cattle and land for the bread offered by the government to the people during the famine years. This Economic Policy required delegation of duty. Bad leaders may delegate duties but often retain the commensurate authority. They are rewarded with beggarly results. Joseph also introduced Taxation Policy of 20% flat rate during the galloping inflation. He did not copy these policies from any country. A leader must be careful in what he copies. A pastor may put on a blue trouser, white shirt and pink necktie, when laying hands on the sick and the person is healed. You may copy his outfit and lay hands on the sick, without any result because you are not aware of the price he pays on his knees.
Joseph was a tested leader. Potiphar saw this and made him head of his business outfit. In prison, the warders saw the trait and put the prisoners under him. In Egypt, he was made Pharaoh’s Prime Minister at the tender age of 30 years. Pharaoh’s testimony about him was that he was wise and prudent, which was displayed in bringing Benjamin to Egypt and the subsequent revelation of himself to his brethren. A man of faith, he predicted that God’s people would go back to the Promised Land one day, hence he requested that they should go with his bones. Moses fulfilled this.
Joseph was a type of Christ. As God declared, ‘This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well-pleased, so did Jacob love Joseph and gave him a coat of many colours. As Jesus was hated by His people, so was Joseph by his brethren. He reported the evil deeds of his brothers to his dad and refused to compromise his faith in Potiphar’s house. He suffered, like Jesus for his righteousness but like Him, ended in victory as I wrote in one of my books, ‘Prison To Palace’. Against man’s will, God promoted him. His spirit of forgiveness is praiseworthy. The dramatic way Potiphar’s wife crafted her accusation should cause every leader to be verifying accusations even when made by highly placed officers. A leader should always listen to the accused, even where the accusation seems apparent. May he not be like Potiphar, who forgot easily, what he had always known Joseph to be or what might have been the amorous nature of his wife!
He forgave his brothers. The mark of his true forgiveness was that, instead of blaming them, he rather saw God’s hand in it, even in his suffering. He could have dealt with Potiphar and his wife, when he came to power as some would, but he did not. He had strong emotions like Jesus, Who wept at the graveside of Lazarus, when He had the solution. This was manifested when he saw Benjamin, his younger brother.
Joseph had human weaknesses. Lack of wisdom in knowing with whom he would share his visions and testimonies attracted hatred and envy for him. Forgetting how he came to prominence, though the second to the last born in a family of 13 children, and how his dad, and not Esau, the first born, was chosen, he positioned his choice son in a manner he would receive his dad greater blessing. Unfortunately, he was angry when the will of God was apparent. He even protested but his father’s will prevailed.
God may allow you to sail on your choice ship but the result is always bitter. Our God is obviously the God of love but may we not forget that He is also a Consuming Fire! Jesus said that He came not to do His will but His Father’s will. May our Father’s will prevail in all the things we do.
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi: 0802 3002-471;anyalechiosondu@yahoo,com