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Day 5: Standing Up to Your Test:

On day 5, we’re taking a look at Genesis 44. On your first readthrough, this chapter may seem strange. Why was Joseph testing his brothers?

In previous chapters, we followed Joseph’s development from an impetuous youth, sitting in the seat of favor in his father’s household and sharing his dreams without much concern for how they would impact others to operating as Pharaoh’s second-in-command, sharing his ability to interpret dreams to make the greatest impact for good at home and abroad. During this time, Joseph’s brothers had undergone the maturation process as well. Imagine the disaster if they had not humbled themselves. We must be experts at extending forgiveness.

For Joseph’s brothers, if the nightmare of growing up in a household plagued by favoritism and rivalry, living in a land devastated by famine and beholden to a foreign power for survival, and bearing a decades-long burden of secrecy and shame were not enough, they were facing their ultimate horror. They were going to lose Benjamin and cause what was left of their father to die of heartbreak. And their honor was at stake.

Joseph’s testing of his brothers revealed their change of heart toward a favored brother and a father whose heart was still not shared equally among them. It allowed Judah to step into his position of leadership as a son willing to be taken into slavery himself to keep that relationship intact—unlike severing it in Joseph’s case. And it brought Joseph’s dream to the forefront again when his brothers bowed to him a third time.

Joseph’s leadership was definitely not about being himself, and even though his brothers misinterpreted it that way, nothing Joseph did from the moment he got into power was about himself. Everything was about interpreting someone else’s dream and applying the wisdom from that interpretation to create, implement, and sustain a system of economic stability, protection, and prosperity in a moment of crisis or a pandemic.

In what ways does your purpose empower others to find theirs and manifest it to expand the kingdom?