God is Perfectly Faithful

I recently began doing a Bible study on Joseph called Finding God Faithful by Kelly Minter.  It has been wonderful so far!  I highly recommend it.  This study points out how messed up Joseph’s family was.  There was some definite dysfunction going on in his home!  I know for myself, sometimes, I feel like I’m just making a mess of things and wondering how God could possibly use my futile attempts at parenting and ministry.  None of us are perfect, and even on our best days, we still mess up and don’t get everything right.  But God is perfectly faithful. Let’s dive into Joseph’s home life a little to see if there’s hope for us!

Before Joseph’s Birth

Genesis 29:21-30 takes us back before Joseph’s birth to the marriage of his parents.  Jacob worked for 7 years to be able to marry Rachel, but then her father sneaked her sister Leah into the wedding instead.  Can you imagine being in Leah’s shoes?!  She knows this man loves her sister, but her dad is making her marry him for the sake of tradition.  And then poor Rachel?  She does love him, but her dad gives her sister to him instead and makes her wait a week to then marry him, too.  And he now has to serve her father another 7 years besides.  This is a bit of a rough start to married life!

But we see in verse 31 that God had mercy on Leah and allowed her to bear 4 sons, but He closed Rachel’s womb.  At this time, bearing children was very important to a woman.  Leah hoped that bearing these sons would cause Jacob to love her, but to no avail.  In chapter 30, the story goes on to tell us that Rachel becomes jealous of Leah and is obviously emotional because she can’t bear children.  I just can’t imagine being in a home with two wives, can you?  Talk about asking for trouble!  However,  having many sons to carry on the family name was important, so marrying more than one wife was a common practice at this time.  So Rachel takes matters into her own hands and gives her maid, Bilhah, to Jacob to try to bear children through her.  So now, there’s three wives.  (This is getting better all the time!)  But it did make Rachel feel vindicated (verse 6), because Bilhah bore him 2 sons.  But Leah is not to be outdone, so in verse 9 it says that Leah goes ahead and gives her maid, Zilpah, to Jacob as well. So now there’s four wives!

I don’t know if these men just left home all day long or what, but I don’t know how they put up with all these women! But Zilpah did bear Jacob 2 more sons.  Then, Leah’s son Reuben finds some mandrakes and brings them home to her.  Rachel asks for some, but Leah says no way. So Rachel bargains with her and says she can have Jacob for the night if she’ll give her the mandrakes.  So Jacob goes to Leah, and she gets pregnant again and has another son. She also has another son later on, but yet Rachel still hasn’t had any children of her own.  Finally, in verse 22 it says God remembered Rachel and opened her womb.  She becomes pregnant and has Joseph.

God’s Faithfulness to Abraham

One thing the study points out is how God made a covenant with Abraham to multiply his descendants and make a great nation of his seed.  Abraham is Joseph’s great-grandpa.  (So God is definitely multiplying Abraham’s seed through Joseph’s father, Jacob!)  As you probably know, Joseph and his brothers become the fathers of the 12 tribes of the nation of Israel.  So even though this family is rather dysfunctional, God still used them to fulfill His promise to Abraham.  My study book highlighted the fact that God’s faithfulness to His promises is not dependent on people’s faithfulness to Him.  In the same vein, His faithfulness to you and me is not dependent on our being perfectly right in all that we do.  What a great, comforting truth!  God is perfectly faithful in spite of us!

Joseph’s Childhood

Growing up in this home would even have been hard for the children—four mothers, at least two of whom are at odds with each other most of the time, 11 half-brothers and at least one half-sister.  As Joseph’s story goes on, we see that his father, Jacob, shows favoritism to Joseph and gives him a special coat.  This definitely couldn’t have helped things in the home at all.  We later learn that his brother’s hated him because of it, and Joseph has some dreams that don’t help his situation either.  It’s not clear why he shared the dreams with his brothers, but he did, which again didn’t endear him to his brothers.  So they eventually devise a plan to sell him to merchants headed to Egypt and made up a story for their father that Joseph had been killed.  Joseph is then sold to Potiphar as a servant.

I know this is may be a familiar story to some, but I hope that you can try to imagine being in Joseph’s shoes.  How would you feel or react to all of this?  I’m not so sure I would have held up quite as well as Joseph did.  But in Genesis 39, verse 2 it says that “The Lord was with Joseph.”  This is the key.  We really can’t do life unless God is with us in our day to day.  We need Him, and that’s ok.  That’s how He made us!  Remember this:

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Philippians 4:13 (NKJV)

God is with Joseph in Egypt

Joseph is promoted well in Potiphar’s house until Potiphar’s wife tries to tempt Joseph, who flees, so she lies about him, and he’s then thrown in prison.  I wonder what Joseph is thinking about now.  “God, did you forget about me?  I’m just trying to make the best of my situation here, but now I’m thrown in prison for something I didn’t even do.”  But we see in verse 22 that God was still with Joseph, and gave him favor in the eyes of the chief jailer who sets him up as an overseer of the prisoners.   So God helps Joseph again to rise above the challenge and be a man of integrity. Joseph is eventually taken out of the prison to interpret Pharaoh’s dream and then made ruler of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself.  He marries, has two sons, and eventually saves His brothers and father from starvation in a severe famine.  (There’s a lesson here on forgiveness, too, but that’s for another day.)  Today, I want to just focus on how God remained perfectly faithful through all of these challenges and mess-ups to accomplish His plan.  He blessed Joseph for staying true to Him even in a foreign land.  So take this with you today:

• 1. God’s faithfulness is not dependent on us getting everything right. Praise the Lord!
• 2. God can work good even through our messes.  We don’t have to feel hopeless.  God is still God at all times and in every thing.  Things may seem bleak sometimes, but we can always trust in His faithfulness.  God is perfectly faithful!

In case you want to check it out, here’s the link to the study I’m doing: Finding God Faithful. I am not using the video sessions, and I’m still able to do the study without any issues. I just skip the session notes pages. Also, check out this link for more about God’s faithful love.