THE STORY, Chapter 3
Genesis 37, 39, 41-48, 50

What Would You Do?

“Joseph was a strikingly handsome man. As time went on, his master's wife became infatuated with Joseph and one day said, 'Sleep with me.' He wouldn't do it." Genesis 39:6-8

How God Turns Pride into Character

After revealing his dream to his brothers, they physically overwhelmed him, sold him as a slave to Ishmaelites (remember Isaac’s older brother to whom Arabs and Muslims trace their descent?), who in turn sold him to Pharaoh as a slave. He rose in and out of imprisonment he rose in prominence until the wife of royalty tried to seduce him. He refused and was once again imprisoned when she claimed he attempted rape.

Sometimes life turns pride to humility. But humility alone isn’t enough. A defeated humility gains nothing. A “poor me, whatever you want, Lord, I can do nothing” humility cannot bless others. It turns a person into a taker instead of a giver. But when God turns the strength of pride into the strength to do the right and hard and humiliating thing in the face of temptation, then that’s a humility that God can use. That’s character. It is that God developed, God shaped character that God used to save all of Israel.

God takes you just as you are and then shapes you so that the best percolates to the top and the worst falls away. It’s not an easy process and usually not a happy one, but it’s a good one, one, looking back on which, each of us will be empowered to say, “thank you, Lord. Thank you for the life you have given me and have used”

Prayer

“Lord, please use me to bless others. Whatever the cost, whatever the pain, shape me, use me, make my life one that will have been a blessing in this brief life I live . . . . whenever, wherever, however. Amen."