Welcome to today’s Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation covering Genesis 45:4-7 wherein we see Joseph share with his brothers the kind of perspective that only God can give.
So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors.
All of life is about developing perspective. Even if there is a high degree of the mundane in our daily schedules, other new events are taking place around us. And even the fact that we’re performing many of the same repetitive tasks puts us in a place where we must ask the question, “How am I supposed to look at such?…What am I to do with it?” If we never seek perspective, we’ll end up frustrated, uncaring, and uncommitted in any number of things. Joseph had had a good twenty years to build this perspective and he knew Who to run to in order to see his crazy life in the right way–this passage reflects such in every manner.
Notice his tenderness toward his brothers. He wants them near, not to harm them, but to inform and reassure them. They had acted wickedly against him many years ago; they had made his life extremely difficult. But before their hearts completely melted with fear over what their ruling brother might do to them, and before they berated themselves over their past sins, Joseph shares with them the bigger picture that he has come to understand. God sent me before you to preserve life is his confident statement and wise assessment. My goodness, even though we might be able to agree with him as we have followed his story and are able to see all that transpires after this, nobody (apart from God) would have blamed Joseph for keeping that bit of perspective to himself to let those brothers learn it on their own. However, we receive so much from his example! Joseph, like Jesus, saw the purpose in his suffering: the relief of others, the continuation of Israel, and the display of the glorious sovereignty of God through it all. Nobody could have argued with Joseph at this point for he rightly points out that this is still the front end of a famine where everyone but Egypt has already run out of food!
Joseph was able to look at the big picture and say, “God did it…ultimately, God did it.” This is what he would continue to communicate and this is the perspective that we see throughout the Scriptures when God’s sovereignty is explained. Will you and I receive it? Will we take that step back and see the good plan of God in the midst of a muddled world or will we only struggle and strain and despair and seek idols for satisfaction and shake our fists at God? It’s easy to answer that question when things seem mostly good and intensely difficult to do so in the midst of great pain. We may need to be that person who opens our arms to others like Joseph did, saying, Come near to me, please and testify to God’s goodness and control over all our lives. Or we may need to be on the receiving end of that in this moment. Whatever the case, there’s no good way around it; we must start building perspective today.
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