Genesis 37:3 – 28

The brothers of Joseph could never speak peaceably to him because they were jealous that their father Jacob loved him more than them. When God gave him two dreams concerning his future, he naively shared it with his brothers, only to precipitate more hatred towards him.

One day Jacob sent Joseph on an errand, to enquire about the welfare of his brothers, who had gone all the way to Dothan to pasture the flock. On seeing Joseph the dreamer coming towards them, they conspired to kill him and inform the father that a wild beast had devoured him.

Reuben the eldest brother of Joseph mooted a compassionate plan to cast him into the pit without killing him, so that he could later rescue and restore him to their father. In the meantime, the brothers who saw a caravan of the Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, heeded to Judah’s commercial plan and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who were on their way to Egypt.

After receiving God’s vision for his life, Joseph was stripped of his favourite coat, cast into a waterless pit and sold as a slave, absolutely unaware that God had started his work to fulfill his dreams.

In retrospect, it is hard to imagine that God was not in the good-natured compassionate plan of Reuben but worked through the callous commercial idea of Judah. Right through the Bible - a common thread that runs through its pages is the established fact that God contrives to permit evil in the lives of His people only to turn the intended evil into a blessing! Joseph struggled for thirteen years but went on to become the governor of Egypt for eighty years.

Thought for the day: God uses the enemy to fulfill His divine plan and purposes in our lives.