inJesusName.blog

Why me? Why now?

You know, there is a problem with that mindset!

God knows every person’s ‘story’; amazingly before it occurs! The one biblical account in the Old Testament that is brought constantly to my mind is Joseph.

Joseph dreamed about the sheaves of grain and the stars 22 years before his family actually bowed to him during the famine.

Timeline Breakdown

• Age 17: Joseph had his two prophetic dreams in Genesis 37 (the sheaves of wheat and the sun, moon, and eleven stars).
• 13 Years in Hardship: Joseph spent 13 years as a slave in Potiphar’s house and in an Egyptian prison.
• Age 30: Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams of the 7 years of abundance and 7 years of famine, and was appointed second-in-command over Egypt.
• 7 Years of Plenty: Joseph gathered and stored grain for seven full years.
• Famine Begins (Age 39): When the famine finally struck and his brothers traveled to Egypt to buy grain (Genesis 42), 22 years had passed since his original dreams.

I share this for a reason, 22 years! If God had shown Joseph more, pride could have defiled his portion! Note, he shared with his brothers that made them angrier at him, besides the fact that Joseph was his father’s favorite son, for reasons:

loved Joseph most because he was the firstborn of Rachel (Jacob’s most beloved wife) and was born to Jacob in his old age.

Key Reasons for Jacob’s Favoritism

• Rachel’s Firstborn: Jacob worked for fourteen years to marry Rachel, whom he loved deeply compared to his other wives (Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah). Because Rachel suffered from long-term barrenness before giving birth to Joseph, Jacob held a special emotional attachment to him.
• Son of Old Age: According to Genesis 37:3, Jacob favored Joseph because he was born when Jacob was older, mirroring how Isaac was born to Abraham in his old age.
• Special Treatment: Jacob openly displayed this partiality by gifting Joseph an expensive, ornate tunic of many colors and assigning him a position of oversight over his older brothers.

We can see that the brothers did not love Joseph.

Joseph’s brothers felt deep hatred, jealousy, and resentment toward him.

Key Causes of Their Feelings

• Father’s Favoritism: Their father, Jacob, loved Joseph more than his other sons and gifted him a special, ornate multicolored robe.
• Provocative Dreams: Joseph shared dreams suggesting that his parents and all of his brothers would one day bow down to him, which angered them further.
• Position of Authority: Jacob placed Joseph in a supervisory role to report back on his older brothers’ actions.

How Their Feelings Led to Action

• Verbal Hostility: The brothers despised him so much that “they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him”. [1]
• Betrayal: They plotted to kill him, threw him into an empty pit, and instead sold him into slavery to passing traders for twenty pieces of silver. [1, 2, 3, 4]
• Later Fear and Remorse: Years later, when they faced a famine and discovered that Joseph had become a powerful ruler in Egypt, they were struck with severe fear, guilt, and anxiety over what they had done.

We can directly heavily in this case, heqvily lean on the verse below:

1 Corinthians 13:6 NIV

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

1 Corinthians 13:6 states that agape (godly, self-sacrificing love) “does not rejoice in unrighteousness [or injustice/evil], but rejoices with the truth”.

Core Teachings of the VerseRejection of Evil and Injustice: Godly love does not find pleasure, amusement, or pride in moral failure, gossip, slander, or the downfall of others. It refuses to gloat when an enemy or rival sins or gets caught in wrongdoing.

No Compromise with Sin: True biblical love is not passive tolerance or sweeping sin under the rug. It does not reframe or justify what God forbids in the name of being “nice” or inclusive.

Rejoicing with the Truth: Love actively celebrates honesty, fairness, moral virtue, and the triumph of God’s Word.

Inseparability of Love and Truth: Love without truth becomes a shallow, meaningless platitude, while truth without love becomes harsh and weaponized. Expressing truth requires grace, humility, and a desire for the restoration and growth of others.