HARD TIMES - Joseph
What does paradise look like to you?
What would life look like if you had no suffering?
There are all kinds of things that we have to suffer through in our day and it is different for everyone. Some things you may not like could include:
School
Chores
Exercise
Reading
Eating vegetables
Having guests over, entertaining or going out
Being alone
Being bored
Getting hurt, breaking bones, falling over
We get used to whatever we have as normal and if we have a pretty good and easy life, having a minor annoying thing happen can feel like a big deal. You should hear some of my kids carrying on about the smallest of things sometimes - like me making them come out on the boat with me! I’m like the meanest parent in the world!
When I talk about hard times in this series though, I am talking about extra hard, unusually hard times.
The hard times we are going through at the moment are extra hard because we don’t normally worry about germs from our friends and family and neighbours. We don’t normally isolate from other people, staying at home for a week or more at a time. We don’t normally have face masks on, so we can’t see people’s faces and expressions and love. We don’t normally live in fear. But these days are not normal.
Last year I had to stay home for 17 weeks with the family - no school or friends or fun. It was not normal.
What do you think?
Think about your brother or sister and if you don’t have one, think about a close friend or cousin.
Have they ever:
Cut your hair?
Yelled at you?
Broken one of your things?
Annoyed you on purpose so that you would get in trouble?
Sold you into slavery?
Tried to kill you?
Story Time!
Jacob’s story can be found Genesis 37-46
Bible Passage: Genesis 45:4-5
"Since Joseph could no longer control his feelings in front of his servants, he sent them out of the room. When he was alone with his brothers, he told them, “I am Joseph.” Then he cried so loudly that the Egyptians heard him and told about it in the king’s palace.
Joseph asked his brothers if his father was still alive, but they were too frightened to answer. Joseph told them to come closer to him, and when they did, he said:
Yes, I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt.Don’t worry or blame yourselves for what you did. God is the one who sent me ahead of you to save lives.
There has already been a famine for two years, and for five more years no one will plow fields or harvest grain. But God sent me on ahead of you to keep your families alive and to save you in this wonderful way. After all, you weren’t really the ones who sent me here—it was God. He made me the highest official in the king’s court and placed me over all Egypt.”
Bible Passage: Romans 5:3-5
“We gladly suffer, because we know that suffering helps us to endure.And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope that will never disappoint us. All of this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with his love.”
Suffering isn’t nice, but God does have a plan for our lives and our suffering. He wants us to endure (which means to keep on experiencing (pain or suffering) for a long time).
He wants us to build character, which is a term that has many meanings, but here is referring to having moral excellence and firmness.
God also wants us to have hope, which is not referring to the cross your fingers and hope for the best kind of hope, but the hope we have in the future of certain eternal life.
We will get this all by suffering and while having the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
Question Time!
What kind of suffering would involve in enduring something for an extended period of time?
How might having to live through something like that build character?
