Post by Mark on Dec 10, 2009 4:29:48 GMT -8
The proverbial journey for finding success in God’s will is often long and hard with few hints of encouragement along the way. Often we are shown God’s direction for our life on a mountaintop, as Abraham saw from Pisgah; but then the journey leads immediately down into the valley.
The wilderness journey that follows is not a long straight path that you can look down and see your goal ever inching closer. It is a confusing maze of hills and valleys, turns and corners. You often can’t tell what direction you’re going at all, or even if the goal that you once had set before you is the destination you’ll eventually reach. The terrain looks tediously the same. The experiences frustratingly mundane. Each step is followed by another, often to the point that you can’t remember why you are walking in the first place. Then, quite suddenly and without any warning, you turn a corner, you round a bend that looks exactly so many you’d turned before, and you’re there.
Joseph’s story started with visions given to him by God (from the mountain-top). He could see exactly the goal that was set before him. Then he proceeded down into the valley and seemed for the next several years to wander aimlessly from one crisis to another.
When Joseph was brought before Pharaoh of Egypt to interpret dreams, he probably had no idea that the destination the God of his fathers had promised him had finally been realized. He’d likely have given up hope on ever seeing his father again, let alone seeing his brothers bow before him. Time after time, he had crested some emotional hill, only to be thrown down head first into more dark valleys before him.
Being the favored son of a nomadic Bedouin was a pretty cushy life. Yet, that’s not what God had in store for him. The head-master of an Egyptian home certainly had some perks; but there was no future in it. As personal servant to the prison warden, Joseph had an element of protection and security (particularly after suffering repeated betrayals in his previous occupations). Any of these roles would have made for pretty satisfying life for most anyone. Yet, Adonai had given Joseph a dream.
It’s easy to forget where we’re supposed to be going when the journey is long, hard and often confusing. Sometimes we get so turned around that we don’t know North from South, or sometimes up from down. The important thing to remember though, when things get discouraging, is that you’re not following your own path, or wandering aimlessly through the wilderness. The Spirit of Adonai establishes our steps. And often, we don’t know how long it will take until we suddenly and unexpectedly look up to find that we’re there.
I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, [and] established my goings.
(Psa 40:1-2)
The wilderness journey that follows is not a long straight path that you can look down and see your goal ever inching closer. It is a confusing maze of hills and valleys, turns and corners. You often can’t tell what direction you’re going at all, or even if the goal that you once had set before you is the destination you’ll eventually reach. The terrain looks tediously the same. The experiences frustratingly mundane. Each step is followed by another, often to the point that you can’t remember why you are walking in the first place. Then, quite suddenly and without any warning, you turn a corner, you round a bend that looks exactly so many you’d turned before, and you’re there.
Joseph’s story started with visions given to him by God (from the mountain-top). He could see exactly the goal that was set before him. Then he proceeded down into the valley and seemed for the next several years to wander aimlessly from one crisis to another.
When Joseph was brought before Pharaoh of Egypt to interpret dreams, he probably had no idea that the destination the God of his fathers had promised him had finally been realized. He’d likely have given up hope on ever seeing his father again, let alone seeing his brothers bow before him. Time after time, he had crested some emotional hill, only to be thrown down head first into more dark valleys before him.
Being the favored son of a nomadic Bedouin was a pretty cushy life. Yet, that’s not what God had in store for him. The head-master of an Egyptian home certainly had some perks; but there was no future in it. As personal servant to the prison warden, Joseph had an element of protection and security (particularly after suffering repeated betrayals in his previous occupations). Any of these roles would have made for pretty satisfying life for most anyone. Yet, Adonai had given Joseph a dream.
It’s easy to forget where we’re supposed to be going when the journey is long, hard and often confusing. Sometimes we get so turned around that we don’t know North from South, or sometimes up from down. The important thing to remember though, when things get discouraging, is that you’re not following your own path, or wandering aimlessly through the wilderness. The Spirit of Adonai establishes our steps. And often, we don’t know how long it will take until we suddenly and unexpectedly look up to find that we’re there.
I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, [and] established my goings.
(Psa 40:1-2)
- there are 70 faces to 
