Learning From Joseph (1) – Connecting the Dots

Have you ever played with your children or grandchildren and helped them create a picture by connecting the dots? Usually, the dots are numbered, so it’s easy to know where to start and what dots to connect as they are in numerical order. Wouldn’t it be great if life was like that with one dot (experience) connected to the next until the whole picture was complete! We could just follow things logically knowing that while the next numbered dot (experience) might seem out of order it was safe to pursue.

However, the truth is that our lives are rarely if ever like that. “We can’t join up the dots looking forward, only by looking back.” This quote from Steve Jobs of Apple fame, got me thinking about the life of Joseph, son of Jacob, leading me into this the first of two ‘Seeds’ about him. To me he seems a good example of a follower of God who could only connect the dots in his life looking back.

The first ‘dot’ in his life is as the favourite son of his father and gifted with two powerful visions from God of a future in an exalted position over his family. The experiences that follow – thrown into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, wrongly accused of rape, thrown into jail and then forgotten by a man in prison whom he had helped explain a dream to, don’t seem to fit into any possible way of fulfilling God’s calling on his life.

Even being appointed the second most powerful man in Egypt doesn’t seem to line up with God’s future for him and his family. The dots representing his experiences don’t seem to line up looking forward. Then comes the realisation that God has placed him where he is, to ensure his family are saved from starvation, and allowed to grow and thrive in Egypt; a place where it would have been impossible for them to be accepted otherwise.

Along the way Joseph’s character is forged in the furnace of adversity. His trust in God is tested time and time again and comes through stronger than ever. At the end, with his brothers around him and looking back at the dots he declares, “But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (Genesis 45:7). What difficulties, problems, challenges, apparent disasters have you faced or are facing? Looking forward, it seems impossible for God to work things out for your good, but if you have the faith to press on regardless, a step at a time, with God’s grace you will be able to look back and see how the dots join up in your life.