Dreams and visions. Again.

Later, when Herod died, God’s angel appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt: “Up, take the child and his mother and return to Israel. All those out to murder the child are dead.”

Joseph obeyed. He got up, took the child and his mother, and reentered Israel. When he heard, though, that Archelaus had succeeded his father, Herod, as king in Judea, he was afraid to go there. But then Joseph was directed in a dream to go to the hills of Galilee. On arrival, he settled in the village of Nazareth. This move was a fulfillment of the prophetic words, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Matthew 2:19 - 23

Almost back to where this Story began
with Joseph, second player.
He, who often seems a bystander.

This creative carpenter, dream-inspired.
Obedient to God's quiet promptings.
Instrumental in taking Mary to Bethlehem for the birth.

Strong in faith,
in love and care,
in obedience.

How good is God.
Continually guiding, loving his people
to keep His son safe.

God will continually guide and love us
to keep His son safe in our hearts
if we let him.

May God give us
dreams and visions
and may we be obedient to follow.

Joseph obeyed.

"Joseph obeyed. He got up, took the child and his mother under cover of darkness. They were out of town and well on their way by daylight. They lived in Egypt until Herod’s death. This Egyptian exile fulfilled what Hosea had preached: “I called my son out of Egypt.”

Joseph.
An almost forgotten hero, in spite of his continual presence
in all Nativities,
in muttered oaths of 'Jesus, Mary and Joseph',
in conversations and Biblical narratives.

We know
he was a devout, God-fearing man,
faithful and obedient to the Law.

And here he is again,
faithful to his family,
obedient to God's word.

Joseph,
as his ancestor was,
a dream-discerner.

This time, though,
there was no doubt.
The command was urgent.

'Get up!  Go! Take the child!'

Discernment on its own
is fruitless without obedience.

Integrity

Joseph's story.
Oh, not our Egyptian hero, but our Nazarene one.
They whispered about him in the village.
Poor Joseph, trustworthy carpenter
having to father
another Man's Son.

Everyone knew
Mary had betrayed him with another.
Unexplainable.
Joseph was a good, steady, hard-working man.
Mary a good, loving, lovely girl.
Oh, he was a good man, he was.

Indeed.
He paid no heed to gossip, wishing only the best
for the girl he adored.
Preferring to protect her in his pain
he, a law-abiding, law-following-in-simple-obedience man
agonized over the Right Thing to Do.

Joseph
descendant of David,
clung to his forefather's psalms
of praise to their God.
Nothing else could matter
but that God, GOD, should be honoured in this mess.

Painfully
he resolved
to quietly separate himself
from his one love
in his disgrace.

Keeping honour
he thought of her first.
Seeking to do what was right and just
and to do it in the right way.
In love and mercy.

But God stepped in.
GOD STEPPED IN!
There was no mistaking the dream.
Joyfully, though he knew
the way would not be easy
Joseph accepted the message.

Joyfully
angst turned to scarcely unbelievable
Good News. He, a man of royal family
yet humble position
would father
the Saviour..

He could not understand it.
Jesus. Yeshua. Jehovah who saves.
Yes. the boy would bear the name
of Joshua, Israel's mighty captain
but saving his people from their sins?

Only God.
Only GOD can save
through men's humble sacrifices
to the Almighty, All-Powerful One.
Joseph knew the Scriptures.
Dared he believe this child would be The One?

He did.
Joseph, carpenter of Nazareth
woke up. He obeyed the Angel of the Lord
willingly he took Mary
to be his wife after all.
Before all that was to come.

And blessing came.
Their marriage
which he thought was lost forever
would be saved.
They would need to be strong
for what lay ahead.

Matthew 1:18 - 25

Before time began...

Where did it start?
Not with a cosy glowing stable scene, eternally warm and fuzzy.
Not with a young girl, giving bad news
(but no, it was GOOD, good news) to her unhappy fiance.
Nor even with angelic visitations.
No, eternally begotten before time began,
the Rescuer planned His earthly recognition,
the Chosen One, He Who Is To Come.

Joseph proudly traced his family
back to Abraham
Matthew getting the Jews alongside
to show them their Messiah, Christ Jesus.

Mary, Luke likewise shows,
has royal ancestry
through David, back to Adam
for Jesus came to save us ALL.

It starts with us. Loved before time began. Do we receive him?

Matthew 1:18 - 25

In the beginning....

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; John 1:1 - 3  The Jesse tree, before the first ornament, representing Creation, was hung...

Notes about Joseph...

Notes on the life of Joseph... 'homework' for The Love church's Supernatural School.

Genesis 37

He was poorly parented – being the favourite made him precocious and perhaps big-headed? He was loved most by Jacob just because he was ‘born to him in his old age’ – not because he was particularly talented or marvellous. He was the youngest, yet told his brothers how important the dreams made him feel.

It was not wise of Joseph to relay his dream: it provoked enmity.  He was foolish- the brothers reacted badly to the first dream and yet Joseph STILL told them the second.  Arrogance?

Joseph’s brothers hated him and wanted him out of their sight – at least they relented from killing him.

Getting rid of Joseph didn’t make him less popular with Jacob – Jacob mourned Joseph for the rest of his life.

Genesis 38

The story of Judah’s hypocrisy and then his realisation. The birth of Perez – who shoved his brother Zerah aside to be born first – ancestor of David, so ancestor of Jesus. Perez like his grandfather Jacob in this respect. So Judah’s immorality (sleeping with a ‘prostitute’, his daughter-in-law Tamar in disguise) was used by God. (In fact Judah, who instigated Joseph being sold as a slave, is included in Jesus’ lineage whereas Joseph isn’t.)

Genesis 39

The Lord was with Joseph and made him successful. The Lord blessed the household because of Joseph. Potiphar left EVERYTHING, except the food he ate, in Joseph’s charge. Potiphar gave Joseph everything (for his use?) except his wife. To sleep with her would have been a sin ‘against God’ – and this was hundreds of years before the ten commandments were given.

Joseph did what was good and was unjustly punished for it.

Genesis 40

God gave Joseph supernatural wisdom to interpret dreams but this did not seem to benefit Joseph – he remained in prison even though the dreams came true. We do not always seem to prosper in spite of the gifts God gives us: perhaps it was not yet the right time?

Genesis 41

Joseph had to wait two more years in prison. Then he was made to look Egyptian again (he was shaved and given new clothes) and brought before Pharaoh to interpret the dream. He straight away said it was only God who could do this, then he gave such a clear interpretation and direction for action that Pharaoh decided Joseph was the best man for the job. Did Joseph now forget the hard time he has had now that he is installed as number 2 in the whole country? Just as the thin cows swallowed up the fat, did the fat time swallow up the thin time of slavery and imprisonment? Or did his past continue to inform his future?

I wondered that he had to save only one fifth of the harvest – why not more?  But there was so much that he stopped keeping records. With such a harvest, the Egyptians must have grown rich in the seven fat years, surely selling their grain to other countries as well? They themselves were not provident in storing grain for the future because they quickly ran out of food.

Joseph was thirty when he stood before Pharaoh – and Jesus was thirty when he started his ministry.

Genesis 42

As governor, Joseph personally sold the grain – all who came to buy would go through him.Joseph remembered his dreams – that his brothers would bow down to him – so he treated them as inferiors. Joseph put the brothers in custody for three days – three days in prison when they did not know if they would ever come out alive. Jesus spent three days in the grave...

Then he gave them a hard time – treating them as liars, demanding that they bring Benjamin – which would distress his father (as shown, in v38)  – to him. Joseph hears them – vv 21 onwards – saying that these bad things were happening to them because of what they did to him. Now they recognise the evil they did, Joseph is upset: why? Because his brothers seemed to repent and his heart melted? Or tears of anger, for all the years at home he had lost because of them?  And he had SIMEON bound (v 24). Why Simeon? Why not Judah, who had him sold into slavery?  The commentary suggests he had been the most violent of the brothers towards Joseph.

Genesis 43

Joseph did indeed have complete authority – not just over the Egyptians, but the brothers believed everything he said because Joseph had said he would refuse to sell them grain if Benjamin wasn’t there as well.

v19 the brothers again seemed to be changed men – fearful, worried, no longer so arrogant that they believed they would get away with murder.

Joseph is emotional – v30 – when he sees Benjamin, his younger brother, the only brother who had not been unkind to him.

Genesis 44

Joseph shows he has his father Jacob the Schemer’s talent (v15) – accusing the brothers of having stolen the cup when he himself had ordered it to be put there.

Genesis 45

Judah, who sold Joseph into slavery, shows his responsibility to his father by offering himself as a slave in place of Benjamin.

Joseph finally loses control of his emotions, unable to keep up the pretence any longer: because he has seen Judah’s change of heart and seen how his brothers have abased themselves before him?

He shows his spiritual maturity when he says, vv5, 7-8: “...do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you...^.But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance... So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God.” Then Joseph is reconciled with his brothers.  God must have been working in Joseph’s heart during the years of imprisonment and slavery for him to respond so quickly in this way.

Genesis 46

Joseph is overjoyed at seeing his father again: he “wept for a long time”.

Genesis 47

Joseph made sure that his family would be well settled on the best land in Egypt. Then he ‘saved’ the Egyptians from starvation by reducing them to servitude. The commentary suggests that the livestock was returned to their owners after the famine had ended?

Genesis 48

Joseph tried to correct his father when Jacob was blessing Joseph’s two sons. How much did he honour and respect Jacob? Or did his experience and status convince him that he knew better than his father? Perhaps he did.... 

Genesis 49

Joseph is praised and blessed by his father, especially for responding with strength when he was attacked. “Your father’s blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains,
    than^[n] the bounty of the age-old hills. Let all these rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince among^[o] his brothers.” The commentary says: “The patriarch describes him as attacked by envy, revenge, temptation, ingratitude; yet still, by the grace of God, he triumphed over all opposition, so that he became the sustainer of Israel; and then he proceeds to shower blessings of every kind upon the head of this favorite son. The history of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh shows how fully these blessings were realized.”

Genesis 50

Jacob is given full honours in his burial, with Pharaoh’s agreement and support. The brothers then worry that Joseph, no longer needing to honour his father, will turn on them, but Joseph says: “But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.”

When Joseph himself died, he remembered and referred to the promise of the land that Abraham was given and insisted that his bones should be taken there, when the promise would eventually happen.

Places

 Jennie Allen, in her study on Discover God's Dream for You, talks about where we are:

Our places are not an accident. Your gifts and stories will be used in many different places over your lifetime. We have freedom to dream about our places; there is great purpose in using our gifts in corporations, nonprofits, state school systems, churches, and neighborhoods. Our God does not separate secular and spiritual. He just wants you to participate in his story wherever you are and with whatever you have....

From Joseph's life we learn it's not about where we are, but how we execute God's mission for our lives wherever we are.
Places will never fulfill us, but can serve as the fertile ground for God to make himself known through us. ...we aren't really in our true "place" yet. The place we were made for is coming; no place feels quite right until we are home.

I want to come to the end of my life and see how God was able to move into time and space through me. I want to see many moments that will last forever, many moments when I sat in boring or painful places that I preached anyway. I want moments no one else saw but that God used to build his kingdom. If I am to go on living and breathing here, I want it to be worth it.

It's not our places, it's what we do in our places.And some questions: What are my places, and how am I seeing God work in them through me?
Am I discontent with my places? Do I want a change? Either way, do I think that God is leading?

Either way, "There is a lot we can know. We know our mission. We know at least a glimpse of the story of God through Scripture. We know we are to love, without warrant, every person God puts in our path, and we know we are to love God more than all of it. When it comes down to it, 99 percent of being in the will of God is being wholly willing to be in the will of God. God is not vague, even though he can be quiet. He is completely wise in his timing of when he shows his will.

 We learn from Joseph's story today (when Joseph was put in prison, God helped him and was good to him) our places are significant, even when they are not necessarily the places we would have chosen. God sets us in them and has important work for us to do there.So, I ask myself, as Jennie Allen suggests: is this true?
Maybe I am exactly in the will of God, living a life of purpose, but I can't even see it because I am afraid?
Afraid my place doesn't matter. Afraid I won't succeed. Afraid God doesn't see me?
Afraid that what I'm doing isn't specifically ministry. Afraid what people will think if I live for Christ in my place?

No, I don't think I am afraid. I recognise the ministry opportunities I have: I often fail, but I try my best, with God's help, to do what He has put before me.

But maybe this is still true, as I also contemplate a move: I am not to let fear distract me  from living boldly in my places.  I can, like Joseph, live more intentionally and embrace the place whether this place or somewhere else - which God has strategically selected for me.



Your place is not the problem; it's what you choose to do in your place that matters.



 

Christmas. Second day.

Together. Yet alone.
Mary and Joseph. Together with Jesus.
No relatives to take them in, so they had to find shelter on their own.
A common stable where they had to stay: together with the animals.
We don't hear of relatives visiting: only rough, uncouth shepherds. Lonely, self-sufficient men who spent much time alone, away from society.
And then there were the foreigners. Did Mary and Joseph understand a word they said?
What strength they must have found in being together. A family.

You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Your Turbulent Times by Max Lucado

I am reviewing this for Booksneeze, which generously gave me a free copy for my Kindle. I'm in the middle of turbulent times as it is, but this is a book I have already reread and will do so again.

In his typical fashion, Max Lucado writes with grace and truth, combining words and phrases with such elegance that wisdom seeps out through them almost unnoticed. His message is simple: you’ll get through this. It won’t be painless. It won’t be quick. But God will use this mess for good...With God’s help you will get through this.

The book is based on Joseph’s life – with encouragement from other Bible stories thrown in for good measure. Max Lucado reminds us of eternal truths: that, whatever else is taken from us: health, wealth, relationships...we cannot lose our destiny as loved children of an almighty God.

Neither should we try to escape from God, recognising that God can use our difficulties to test our faith and train us, like children. Patience can be learned through waiting; an attitude of gratitude gets us through the hard stuff. We CAN rely on God.

Lucado tackles those difficult questions: is God good, even when life isn't? How can I find healing? Where can I find forgiveness in me?Can I ever forgive...? How can I deal with the death of a loved one?

Each chapter in itself could have been a book. There are, as we discover near the end of this book, no easy answers. Max Lucado offers a little encouragement along the way: not to give up hope. The book is an effortless read because the style is so easy, but it is not undemanding. Some phrases, some chapters will annoy you. Stop there, and consider why. Use the discussion questions at the back. Pray. Pause. Reflect. Let God speak truth into your life through these little challenges: stay with Him, and find help and healing along the way.