Discovering Destiny (Part 44): Why God Blesses You In The Worst Place
Today, we continue our focus on THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, as we learn to maintain our posture of faith after God has revealed His plans for our future.
Key scriptures for this year:
2 Peter 3:18 GNT"But continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever."
Luke 10:20 Mirror"It's time for you to rediscover who you are from Heaven's perspective."
1 John 3:10 Mirror"There is a very visible and vast difference between living one's life from your God identity or from a fallen man's mindset."
Proverbs 25:2 NKJV"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter."
Jeremiah 29:13 NIV"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."
Scripture(s) we will study today:
Genesis 39:21-23 NLT"But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden. Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. The warden had no more worries, because Joseph took care of everything. The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed."
Supporting scriptures:
Psalm 105:17-19 TPT"But he had already sent a man ahead of his people to Egypt; it was Joseph, who was sold as a slave. His feet were bruised by strong shackles and his soul was held by iron. God's promise to Joseph purged his character until it was time for his dreams to come true."
Psalm 34:19 AMPC"Many evils confront the [consistently] righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all."
Isaiah 43:2 ERV"When you have troubles, I am with you. When you cross rivers, you will not be hurt. When you walk through fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not hurt you."
Acts 7:9-10 TPT"Jacob's sons became jealous of their brother Joseph and sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But God's favor and blessing rested upon Joseph, and in time, God rescued him from all his oppression and granted him extraordinary favor before Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Pharaoh appointed him as the overseer of his nation and even of his own palace."
Psalm 37:23-24 NLT"The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand."
Genesis 40:1-4 AMPC"Now some time later the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their lord, Egypt's king. And Pharaoh was angry with his officers, the chief of the butlers and the chief of the bakers. He put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the prison where Joseph was confined. And the captain of the guard put them in Joseph's charge, and he served them; and they continued in custody for some time."
Genesis 50:20 TPT"Even though you intended to hurt me, God intended it for good. It was his plan all along, to ensure the survival of many people."
Setting the Stage:
Yesterday, we watched Joseph run out of Potiphar's house with no coat on his back. Today, we find out where he wound up. Potiphar took the man who had run his entire estate and threw him into the prison where the king's prisoners were kept. Psalm 105 tells us what that looked like: "His feet were bruised by strong shackles and his soul was held by iron." Joseph did not walk into that prison. He was dragged in.
Think about what was going through his mind. He was 17 when his brothers sold him. He is somewhere in his twenties now. He has spent years being faithful in a house that was not his, and he has just said no to the one thing that could have ruined him, and the “no” is what ruined him. There had to be a moment on that prison floor when Joseph looked at the iron on his ankles and thought, "I did the right thing. I ran. I kept my integrity. So why is all of this happening to me?" The pit was his brothers' doing. The prison was the price of doing right. Of the two, the prison had to hurt more.
Then Moses writes the word he has already written once in this chapter. Verse 21: "But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison." Same sentence as verse 2. In Potiphar's house, the Lord was with him. In Pharaoh's prison, the Lord was with him. And the text does not stop there. God "showed him his faithful love," God "made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden," and before long, the warden "put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners." Joseph was locked in the king's prison, and within a few verses, he was running it.
So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. The Same God Who Was With Joseph In The House Was With Him In The Prison.
Look at how Moses builds this chapter. Verse 2 says, "The Lord was with Joseph" when he was a slave. Verse 21 says, "But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison." Before the favor, before the promotion, the text says God "showed him his faithful love." The Hebrew word is hesed, God's covenant loyalty, and it showed up in a prison cell before anything else changed. Isaiah 43:2 ERV says, "When you have troubles, I am with you." God did not say when your troubles are over. He said when you have them. In the middle of them.
How this applies to you:
-- God's presence is not only tied to pleasant environments or circumstances.
-- Joseph was innocent, and innocence did not get him freedom from prison. What it got him was God in the cell with him. Sometimes, doing the right thing does not change your circumstances; it changes who is standing next to you in them. In other words, many Christians want to get out of circumstances, and God, instead of delivering them from the circumstances, He chooses to walk with them through it.
-- The first thing God gave Joseph in prison was not a promotion. It was faithful love. Before God fixes your situation, He reminds you that He loves you and that He is with you.
-- Some of us are in a hard place because of our own decisions, and others are there because of someone else's evil ways. Either way, the text is the same: the Lord was with Joseph in the prison. God has promised to be with you whether you put yourself in a bad situation or not.
-- Psalm 34:19 AMPC says, "Many evils confront the [consistently] righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all." The verse does not promise the righteous fewer evils. It promises that not one of them gets the last word.
-- Joseph’s address changed twice, and God was with him every step of the way.
-- Being destined does not mean your life will be easy. It just means that you acknowledge two things every day: 1) You are destined, and 2) God is committed to walking with you every step of the way down the path to His purpose.
2. God Gave Joseph Favor With A Man Who Had Every Reason To Despise Him.
Consider who the warden was. He ran the prison where Pharaoh's own offenders were held, which means he answered to the captain of the guard, and the captain of the guard was Potiphar. The newest prisoner in his care was a foreign slave accused of assaulting that captain's wife. If anybody in Egypt had a reason to make Joseph's life miserable, it was this man. And Scripture says, "The Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden." Notice who did it. Not Joseph's charm. Not Joseph's résumé. The Lord did it. Stephen summarized the whole story this way: "God's favor and blessing rested upon Joseph" (Acts 7:9-10 TPT). Favor rested on the man, so it went wherever the man went. This portable favor. Potiphar had it in his house, and now the warden had it in his prison, and neither one of them knew where it came from.
How this applies to you:
-- Favor is not attached to the room you are in; it is attached to you.
-- The warden did not know Joseph's dream, his father, or his God. He knew what he could see, and what he could see was a man he could trust with everything. Favor with people follows the evidence of God on your life.
-- God had a warden in place before Joseph arrived. In THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, understand that the people you will need in the hard place were positioned there before you got there.
-- Joseph did not campaign for the warden's approval; he just kept being Joseph, and God handled the warden. Stop trying to win people God has already assigned to you.
-- The same favor that got you promoted in the last room is already working in this one.
-- The warden was not just kind to Joseph; he was part of Joseph's destiny. God gave Joseph favor with the one man who could hand him the keys to the prison, because running that prison was the next step toward running Egypt. The favor you have with people right now is God moving you toward what He planned for you.
3. The Prison Taught Joseph How The Monarchy Worked.
The warden did not stop at trust. He handed Joseph "all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison." I have taught this before, and it belongs right here. This was a royally funded institution, a prison reserved for offenses against the throne. As much as Joseph had learned about Egypt in Potiphar's house, he knew nothing about running a prison, and he knew nothing about how the monarchy executed its rule of government. Now he had to learn it. He learned how the Egyptian government worked.
In the prison, Joseph learned how to communicate with the royal government to put in requests and receive resources. He learned how to format those requests. In today's terms, he was learning how to fill out the forms and format the emails. He was responsible for other men, for the entire logistics operation, and for reporting the status of the prison to the throne. Psalm 105:17-19 TPT says, "God's promise to Joseph purged his character until it was time for his dreams to come true." Joseph was going to run a national logistics operation that would carry Egypt through seven years of famine, and God was training him for it from inside a prison.
How this applies to you:
-- God does not waste the room you are stuck in; He teaches in it.
-- If what you are working on today is not the thing, it is the thing getting you ready for the thing.
-- Joseph could not get into the palace, so God brought the palace to him. Every request he sent to the throne and every resource that came back was a lesson in how Pharaoh's world operated, and he could not have learned it anywhere else.
-- The size of your call determines the size of your preparation. Joseph's assignment was to feed a nation, so his training had to be commensurate with the assignment.
-- Your worst season may be your best training.
-- A prison can hold your body, but it cannot hold your development.
-- Stop asking what you are losing where you are and start asking what you are learning.
-- Every lesson Joseph learned in that prison was tied to a destiny he could not see yet. God knew Joseph would need to speak the throne's language, so He enrolled him in royal training without him knowing it. What you are learning today is connected to something God planned for you before you were born.
4. Joseph Got Closer To His Destiny Without Ever Leaving The Prison.
Genesis 40 opens with the words "some time later." Joseph is still locked up, still running the prison, still waiting. Then Pharaoh gets angry with two of his own officers, the chief butler and the chief baker, and throws them into the same prison. Moses writes, "The captain of the guard put them in Joseph's charge, and he served them" (Genesis 40:1-4 AMPC). These two men had stood inside the palace Joseph had only seen in a dream. Joseph did not have to get out to meet them. God had them delivered to him. God was moving pieces on the chessboard of Joseph's life, and the butler and the baker showing up in his prison was a move. Joseph was one step closer to his destiny, and he never left his cell.
How this applies to you:
-- You do not have to get out of where you are for God to get to you.
-- God is moving pieces on the chessboard of your life. Joseph did not see the butler coming, and he did not have to. God knew the two men Joseph needed and had Pharaoh send them to Joseph's address.
-- Serve the people in front of you, because you have no idea where they are going next.
-- The people God has assigned to your destiny are already on their way.
-- The butler and the baker did not look like a breakthrough; they looked like two more prisoners. Some of the key aspects of your destiny will appear ordinary to you. This is why you must be faithful every day. You never know when you are encountering something or someone that is key and central to your journey.
-- Genesis 50:20 TPT says, "It was his plan all along." The butler and the baker were part of the plan before Joseph was born.
-- Joseph was not promoted the day those men showed up; he was positioned. Positioning comes before promotion, and tomorrow we will see what happened when those two men had a dream.
That's enough for today.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, thank You that You are with me in the worst place, not just the best one!
Doing right may have cost me the house, but it did not cost me Your presence!
You showed Joseph faithful love in a prison, and You are showing me faithful love right here!
Your favor is attached to me, and it walks into every room I walk into!
Nobody can lock me in a place Your favor cannot enter!
The people I need in the hard place were positioned there before I arrived!
You are not wasting this season; You are teaching me in it!
If this is not the thing, it is the thing getting me ready for the thing!
The door to my next level can walk right into where I am today!
I do not have to get out for God to get to me!
In THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!
I declare this by faith. In Jesus' name. Amen!
This is Today's Word. Apply it and prosper!
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