Hebrews 1; Genesis 45; Genesis 46:1-27; Psalm 36

“So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.” (Genesis 45:8 NKJV)

Joseph and his brothers didn’t get along very well. Joseph was known to snitch on his brothers when they did wrong. He was the favorite son, and he wasn’t shy about letting them know that. On top of that, he made sure that they knew about his dreams where they all bowed down to him. Joseph is the little brother that you laugh at when he’s your friend’s, but you curse when he’s yours. His ten older brothers had put up with him long enough. They originally planned to kill him, but then, saw an opportunity to make a buck or two, sold him into slavery. Then, through a series of strange events, he ended up as the number two man in Pharaoh’s administration and kept the Egyptians from suffering during the famine in the land. The brothers came into Egypt to buy food, the famine was so widespread that it reached to Canaan. It would have been easy for Joseph to take revenge on them. Instead, Joseph sold them grain and eventually revealed who he really was and let them know that all those bad things they engineered was God’s way of bringing him to leadership in Egypt. Maybe we can learn from his attitude as we deal with the stresses and strains of everyday life.

When customers and co-workers get on your nerves, are they a hindrance? a target of murder planning? or just a pain in the neck? What if they were actually God’s way of molding you into the person you’re supposed to become? The next time you deal with one of those problem children of the workplace, try to see how God is using them to mold you into His will. You don’t have to thank them for being obnoxious, but it wouldn’t hurt you to thank God for how He’s using them in your life.

Lord, there are a lot of people who rub me the wrong way. Use them to mold me into the kind of person I need to become. Thank You for giving me the strength to endure and learn the lessons from them I need to learn.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.