One time during Sunday School I had to teach the story of Joseph. It’s one of those lessons where the story is so long that the assigned readings included multiple sections and chapters. One of the parts we read was where Joseph speaks to his brothers after Jacob has died. The brothers were afraid that since their father was dead that Joseph would turn against them and seek to exact revenge for all the evil they’d done.

But Joseph doesn’t do that. We came to the part where he says, ““Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…(Genesis 50:19-20).” I thought to myself, “Now how did he know that????” How did he know that God had meant all those terrible things that had happened to him for good? He didn’t have Romans 8:28 then. You hear people say things like this all the time.

God this. God that. He worked in such-and-such a way, He opened a door and closed another one. Some people feel uncomfortable talking more about their thoughts and feelings. I think that’s just about the weirdest thing in the world, but it’s also how I feel when it comes to talking about my faith. I’m not here to parade it, not that I think that’s what these other people are doing. They have more courage than I.

So I went back thinking I’d look through the Joseph chapters from the point where he had been sold to see if there was anything there to give any indication as to where Joseph would’ve gotten such a bold, faith-filled statement from. It didn’t take long to find things, and after one chapter I didn’t need to read more. “The Lord was with Joseph”, in Genesis 39:2. Again in 39:3, “His master saw that the Lord was with him.”

In 39:5, “The blessing of the LORD was on all that he had, in house and field”, and in 39:21, “But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love”, and finally, in 39: 23, “because the LORD was with him.” So somehow the Lord being with him must have given Joseph the assurance that in his trials, “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen (Psalm 77:19).”