The Bible is not evasive at all when it comes to telling us about its heroes. The life of Joseph is one of the more complete accounts we have of a person’s life. Most of the details we have about Joseph are from his teen years onward, but we can assume a lot about his childhood when we read the whole story in Genesis. His early years were marked by what we would now call “childhood trauma.”
Joseph was born into a family where there were already ten sons, the first son of his mother Rachel while the older boys were born of three other mothers. He was most likely still a young child when, hurriedly and secretly, they moved away from Grandpa Laban’s, the only home Joseph had ever known. They had traveled for a week when Grandpa caught up with them. There were loud, angry words; was the little boy afraid?
Father Jacob and Grandpa Laban worked something out, however, and soon they were on their way again—only to receive news that Uncle Esau was coming to meet them with four hundred men, ready to fight! Joseph’s father divided the servants, flocks and herds into several groups, sending some ahead to meet Esau. During the night he got up and moved his family across the brook, while he stayed behind. In the morning, when he returned for them, he was crippled! More scary stuff for a child!
Then there was the nasty encounter at Shechem, when the young men of the family slaughtered the residents for the rape of their sister. Also, Deborah, a faithful family servant died and was buried near the city. Where was young Joseph when all of this was happening? They were only a little way from Ephrath (Bethlehem), when Rachel went into labor, and baby brother Benjamin arrived. But Rachel died giving birth, and was buried along the way. A little while later, Grandpa Isaac, the patriarch that Joseph had heard so much about and the one whom they had traveled through such difficulty to join, also died. Such loss for a little boy.
Although not the youngest of the sons, Joseph was favored by his father, and this favoritism sparked ill will among those who were slighted. This in turn led to wrongdoing and undeserved suffering. He did not add to his likeability by unwisely, it would seem, telling everyone the dreams which forecast his authority over them and by serving as a “reporter” to his father. Finally, still only a teenager, Joseph was sold by his own brothers as a slave to foreigners.
So Joseph, an honored Bible example, even a foreshadowing of Christ Himself, grew up in a wildly dysfunctional family—think of that! Had he lived in modern times, he might exhibit one ailment or another and then say, “Well, you can’t blame me for my problems. I had a lot of trauma as a youngster.” Or he could behave badly, and ask, “What do you expect from someone with a dysfunctional family like mine?” Instead, he consistently acted with integrity—when propositioned, when unjustly imprisoned, when given responsibility, when forgotten, and finally when given power and almost unlimited authority. The ultimate demonstration of his uprightness was his forgiveness of the brothers who had so wronged him. Revealing himself as their long-lost brother, he declared, “God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors. So it was God who sent me here, not you! And he is the one who made me an adviser to Pharaoh—the manager of his entire palace and the governor of all Egypt.” (Genesis 45:7-8, emphasis mine) And later, when the brothers feared that Joseph would get even after their father’s death, he assured them, “ ‘Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people . . .’ So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them.” (Genesis 50:19-21, emphasis mine)
Joseph was able to look at his past through enlightened eyes. He was able to recognize that, all along, his life had been marked—not just with trauma—but with the presence of God. Even his employer and the prison keeper were aware of it. It was Joseph’s greatest asset.
We do not always comprehend the greater plan. We are myopic, seeing only what is right in front of us. But God does have a plan! Before the foundation of the world, He chose us to know Him. He looked ahead, saw the genes each of us would inherit, saw the people who would influence us as we grew up, saw the problems and questions and mistakes that would impact us negatively, and said, “I choose you . . . and you . . . and you. All of us. We look at our backgrounds and say, “But this is just the way I am. It’s too hard. I can’t do this, or I can’t be this, because of such-and-such.” But before any of us ever had a background, God was saying “I want you.” It took all of the experiences we have had—all of our past—to bring us to this very place of God’s calling.
MaryMartha
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. United States of America. All rights reserved.
Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com
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