There’s an old saying: “No good deed goes unpunished.” Joseph might have understood the feeling.
By the time we reach Genesis 39, Joseph has been betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, and carried to Egypt. Yet he lives faithfully in circumstances he never chose. He earns Potiphar’s trust. Then, when Joseph acts with integrity and refuses to betray that trust, he gets falsely accused and thrown into prison.
If ever there were a moment to say, “This is what I get for practicing integrity,” this was it.
Notice that Genesis doesn’t tell us Joseph sailed through all this without anger, fear, or discouragement. It tells us nothing about what goes on in his mind. It simply tells us what he did next, that we can summarize this way: “He kept on being Joseph.”
Scripture tells us another fact, twice, one Joseph may not have even known: the Lord was with him.
But the prison door stayed shut. In fact, after Joseph helps Pharaoh’s cupbearer, the man with the ear and trust of Pharaoh, the man who could help him…simply forgets him. Joseph remains in prison for two more years. Joseph, at that point, can see no indication that anything is about to change.
That feels like where Joseph’s story speaks most clearly to our ordinary lives. It may help us experience that sometimes God’s presence enables us to remain faithful while nothing changes at all.
Most faithfulness doesn’t look dramatic. It may just look like keeping a promise, caring for someone when caregiving becomes repetitive and tiring, or telling the truth when a lie would be easier. We can overlook faithfulness when it just looks like treating people decently when nobody is keeping score or noticing someone else’s sadness when we have plenty of our own.
We don’t have to pretend painful circumstances are good. Joseph’s slavery, false accusation, imprisonment, and being forgotten were not good. But we don’t have to call evil good in order to believe that God is present.
We also don’t have to wait until life becomes what we want before we can live faithfully in it.
Perhaps the question for today is simply something like this: What is mine to do today? Who is in front of me today? Where can I practice honesty, compassion, patience, courage, or care today?
God is with us in the life we actually have, not just waiting ahead of us for when we have the life we think we want. And by grace, we can be faithful right there.
We’d love to see you in person at Lincoln Park-Lynnwood United Methodist Church, 3120 Pershing Street, Knoxville, TN. Come as you are. We’re not in the judging business. We’re in the welcoming business.
Use this to provoke your own thinking, right now while it’s fresh. What’s one thing you can do despite your circumstances or challenges?
