Today in church, someone shared about the blessing Abraham gave to Joseph: “Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall.” (Genesis 49:22) He pointed out how Joseph lived much of his life in enclosed places. He was thrown into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery to Midianite merchants who then sold him to an Egyptian official. That was a terribly unpromising start . . . but it only got worse. Through a false accusation from Potiphar’s wife he was cast into prison. We know he was enslaved to Potiphar at the age of seventeen and finally released at the age of 30. Thirteen years of his life were spent in this manner.

 

Joseph had every reason to despair. Egyptian prisons were not institutions bothered by softer humanitarian sentiments. He dwelt in dark and dank places surrounded by criminals and had no prospect of release. By all appearances, he should have given up hope and died. But the life of Joseph, or should we say, the life that was placed IN Joseph, would not be so easily defeated. Against every contrary signal, he would not give up on life and steadily maintained hope in God . . . that in the end God would, some way and some how, fulfill His grand design in him.

 

Vines climb. That is the nature of these creatures. You put a wall in front of a vine and it doesn’t expire in despair at the sight of it, but uses it as a point of leverage to reach higher. In fact, it would never find higher ground without the “inconvenience” of a wall or two standing in its way. Vines are irrepressible that way.

 

Challenges to life are not always welcome. But they do almost always represent opportunity. The question is, do we see it as that, and shape our attitudes to take advantage of that, or do we simply wilt in their presence? If Joseph had been asked in his youth, do you want to be the number two man in Egypt, he would have excitedly nodded his head. Of course! So much good could be done for God in that position. But one doesn’t just wake up and reach such a position by magic. One climbs to that position by passing through, and defeating, one challenge after another. One isn’t transported into a broader situation by happenstance; one develops into such a situation step by step.

 

Though our world sometimes bears the air of randomness, I am sure of this: when we look back at everything from eternity’s perspective, it will all make sense. Those who sowed much, perhaps in tears, will have reaped much, and those who sowed little, will have reaped little.

 

For Joseph, the time of sowing was thirteen years in slavery and prison. It was his time of sowing into his character, into his faith, and into a victorious hope that prevailed against every opposing external force.

 

An onlooker would have thought, what a waste of time! His best years are whiled away in a prison cell! Well, God’s perspective is different from man’s, and what looked like a waste to man’s eyes was really the severe, but also gracious, sovereignty of God at work. Joseph was not ready to ascend to authority at the age of seventeen. He needed to learn humility, compassion, diligence, kindness, economics, agrigulture and many other things. The school of God doesn’t always look like a school, but it is exactly that, and highly effective in its purpose! If we are willing to pass through it we will have the character of Jesus Himself more deeply etched into our beings, and that is what makes us fit to take on responsibility for the Lord.

 

The moment of victory finally came for Joseph. Before he could really understand what was happening, he was released. And from release to number two in all the land took a mere word from Pharaoh’s lips, showing yet again, that when God chooses to move, you better hang on to your hats! Surely there were ambitious Egyptians of the court who had plotted and schemed their whole lives to ascend to greater prominence. Little did they see that they would have fared far better going through God’s school of suffering than all the best schooling Egypt could offer.

 

Joseph did not seek to be number two . . . he was given it. And that so because he had become a man who could bear God’s burdens in such a position without being crushed by the responsibility and temptations. As a friend of mine likes to say, he had been made “safe for blessing”. And a blessing he was, to his family, to his own Hebrew people, to the Egyptians and surrounding gentile nations who found food from his storehouses in famine . . . the list goes on.

 

The life in Joseph was vibrant. It was irrepressible. It was from the Lord. And it was victorious. Indeed, he was a vine that climbed over the wall. Praises to God!

 

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