Joseph | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

When, For a Season, God Himself Blocks You

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to save many lives,” Joseph quietly tells his brothers. (Genesis 50:20)

Oh they did; they sure did, first throwing him into a disused well, then uncaringly selling him on for thirty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, not caring what became of him.

And what came out of his experience of betrayal, slavery, false accusation, and imprisonment was elevation—promotion—influence–the ability to save many lives.

* * *

I used to feel stressed and a bit hopeless if I had enemies, if I thought there were people with inveterate animosity, jealousy, competitiveness, or malice towards me, who would block me, who might slander me. The thought of such people still does not make my heart sing!

But they are a fact of life. “Some are jealous of your face. Some are jealous of your lace. And some will be jealous of your grace,” as RT Kendall writes in The Anointing.

However, Shakespeare’s young Henry V puts it well, “We are in God’s hands, brothers, not in theirs.”

I sigh if I realize someone is reflexively blocking me or my ideas, putting in a bad word for me, but I am not afraid.

I do not fear them.

Because there are always two stories going on in our lives: the plot we see, and the story God is still writing. There is the story people think they are forcing onto your life–in which you may miss the chance to lead, speak, get the prize, the invitation, because someone feels threatened by you, is jealous of you, or just plain dislikes you.

Often you are unaware of these machinations, and that’s best. When you do know, you wring your hands with a sense of loss.

But all is not lost.

You were not meant to lead at that time. You were meant to quietly follow the One. You were not meant to speak at that time. You were meant to listen.

Sure, it will take you longer to achieve your heart’s desire. The Spirit is taking you on the scenic route. You are in the desert, where all voices are silent, but the voice of God; where is no trophy but his companionship; no wine but his spirit; where your progress is not measurable, and, anyway, there’s no one to praise it.

Why, even your prayers aren’t working. Every avenue of showing off is blocked.

Welcome to the desert, fellow pilgrim, where God himself blocks you.

* * *

You say: “See here, God, I have wasted my life. Look at me, mid-life and achievement-poor. Remember, God, those years I was promising; remember that award for a writer of unusual promise? Why I was in my twenties then. The snazzy university, the snazzy prizes, the early publications, the blushing peach down of promise, remember?

Well, I’ve failed, and you’ve failed me; we’ve failed together, you and I.

Yeah, you really haven’t managed my life too well, Lord, and neither have I. Let’s just go eat some worms.

My twenties are over, my thirties, my… Let’s just say “my hasting days fly on with full career, but my summer little bud or blossom showeth.”

How can you make up to me, God for the years when I wanted to build much, but instead built little?

You have behaved rather badly towards me, my God, my friend. You have let me down. You are my friend, and so I forgive you, but I am sad about this. I am.

But if I love anyone, I love you. So yes, I will follow you because, you’ve sure ruined my appetite for following other paths of glory.

I believe you can restore the years the locusts have eaten. The prophet Joel said so, and Christians have attested to it. But I don’t see how. Jesus, let’s be honest here, I sometimes feel as if nothing can compensate me for those wasted years, the years in Joseph’s dungeon.

I really do.

Though they were what you gave me, and I accept them because I love and trust you. I accept them from your hands in trust as I accept the full years of your goodness.

* * *

And you, Lord, reply:

“Child, child, friend, beloved, Anita, what you wanted was a lesser good, and so I withheld it.

You saw the success of your writer friends—their whirl of book readings, teaching gigs, speaking gigs, lectures, prizes, prolific writing, book contracts, money, fame, fascinating friends, travel. All the trappings of a career. And you wanted it too.

And I knew you wanted it.

But I also knew you better than you knew yourself. Don’t make that face. I truly do.

You were not ready for the busyness of travel, deadlines, speaking, teaching, crises, midnight oil.

Fame and glory–what made you think it would make you happy? I knew it would not. It would not. Rushing to planes, trains and automobiles has never made you happy. Rush has never makes you happy, or busyness, or deadlines. You love quiet unscheduled days at home, or in your garden.

But I promise you this: You will write the books you want to write. You will not die before your pen has gleaned your teeming brain.

All the things you deeply love and want to explore and preserve in words, I will ensure you explore and preserve them,

All the things I kept from you, I kept not for your harm, but that you might find it in my arms.

You are sad that success came later than you wanted it, but trust me.

The bright lights of the big cities would have obscured me.

The noise would have silenced my whisper.

A hammer had to be taken to all those idols.

There had to be a gotterdamerung, a ragnarok. You wanted to be Ms. Famous Writer, to dazzle the world with your creativity. You wanted fame, glory, money, success, as you saw your friends get it.

I gave you quietness, I wooed you to the desert, and there I showed you my love.

You had but one shot at investing in your children. I slowed down your career so you could teach them all you had to teach them. And could your marriage have withstood the rush in peace, not pieces? Did you want to be Ms. Divorced Famous Writer? You did not.

You have reached mid life with a full heart and full spirit, into which I have poured and poured and poured myself and my words. And now it is time to write.

* * *

“Oh God, could you not have poured both? Both yourself and the other things I wanted?”

“But then there would not have been room for me. I had to pry your fingers from other things, so they would clasp me. Had to silence other sounds, so you could hear me.

I gave you not what you thought you wanted, but what you love, quiet and peace and silence. And in the quietness of your country garden, I shaped you, I formed you, I made you into a woman of integrity, a woman aligned with me, a woman I can trust.

You sometimes feel you’ve wasted your life.

But child, you’ve given your life to me. It’s now my story, not yours. I am the author, not you.

Accept the plot twist I chose. Forgive me, as I forgive you. It was not time before. It’s time now. It’s time.

* * *

Lord, I accept the plot you chose. I accept my years in the wilderness. I accept your judgement that they were necessary. I forgive you.

And I will go forward in joy, in alignment with you, your joy filling my heart.

* * *

Open your hands wide, and I will fill them. Your heart has been reformed in the silent years.

Now I know, and you know, that while your hands are full of my blessings, your eyes will be on me and your heart will be full of me.

* * *

Tweetables

Welcome to the desert, fellow pilgrim, where God himself blocks you. From @anitamathias1

You are in the desert, where all voices are silent, but the voice of God. From @anitamathias1

There are always two stories going on in our lives, the story we perceive, and the story God is still writing From @anitamathias1

When God stills all the noise, and you say “See here, God. I have wasted my life.” From @anitamathias1

Questions

Have you experienced a period of great silence? Have you experienced God more deeply as a result?

Image Credit

This post is kindly sponsored by mordocrosswords.com. Thank you for your support.

On Trusting our Work to God: Moving Upwards by Standing Still

By Anita Mathias

Reginald Arthur, 1893, Joseph before Pharaoh

Joseph is seventeen when he sees his sheaf stand up and his brothers’ sheaves bow down. When he sees the sun, moon and eleven stars bow to him.

* * *

Interestingly, God shows him his destiny, the end of his days, but not what he needs to do to get there.

And that is because there is nothing Joseph needs to do to get there. God will do it all. Joseph merely needs to cooperate as God forms the character necessary to bear “the weight of glory.”

* * *

Our lives are full of ironies: There are always two stories going on: what we think is happening, and what God knows is happening, what He is doing.

What Joseph thought was happening was pits and the pits—betrayal, slavery, false accusation, prison, being forgotten by those he helped.

What God knew was happening: Joseph was developing administrative experience, integrity, trustworthiness, gifts of dream interpretation, people skills. He was being prepared for greatness in the very years he thought were wasted.

* * *

Slavery to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s captain of the guard, leads to Joseph being put in charge of his household, thus developing the extraordinary administrative gifts he probably didn’t even know he possessed.

Unjust accusation and confinement to a dungeon leads to him running the prison, and meeting those in Pharaoh’s circles, learning how Egyptians speak, dress, behave and think.

And what was paramount, he develops character—loyalty, diligence, organization, sexual purity. He sheds self-pity and any pridefulness over his spiritual gifts. He learns the great lesson of trusting God.

And through an improbable series of events—in line with his seminal gift–God moves him upwards.

* * *

There is so much stress in our world on hustling and networking. Perhaps too much?

Ah, the time we would save if we did our work, our eyes on God, without incessant networking with one another, hoping for a hand up, and a leg up, discovery, and a big break. Cannot God give us all these things as we do the work? I do believe he can and he will, when the time is right.

None of the spiritual giants in the Bible networked and hustled to get the word out about themselves. Can you imagine Jeremiah or Isaiah or Ezekiel making nice so people would put in a good word for them with Ahab or the current wicked king?

And what good would that have done them? Their work, their power, their career, their specialness came from this strange, insistent thing that kept happening to them. They heard God speak. And they wrote with pens of fire: “Thus saith the Lord.”

Transcribing what they heard God say made their words special, and God ensured that their words endured. They kept their eyes on God. God promoted them.

Is it possible today in the twenty-first century to do the work and leave the rest to God? To let God organize our careers?

* * *

All those dreadful things that happened to Joseph were, in fact, God organizing his life. God organized that Joseph was bought by Potiphar and learnt to run a country house. God organized that Joseph was falsely accused and learnt to run a prison. God organized that Joseph met Pharaoh’s cupbearer in prison, and validated Joseph by giving him the correct interpretation of the cupbearer’s dream, thus arranging for him to meet Pharaoh.

I know many people worried about their blogging or writing careers, worried about getting the word out about themselves.

But what if we just did our work, listened to Jesus, and wrote what we heard–could we not trust him to get our words out to whom they might bless? A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

This is something I am increasingly trying to do.

I have come to the place where I have no energy to network, nor the temperament to flatter, to pretend to like what I do not like, to maintain relationships for what good the other person might do me or my career. And how could God possibly bless such relationships?

I know this is the way the world works, I know this is the way business is done, but might there not be a more excellent way, of loving relationship, not networking; of trust, not hustle? A way of being in which we cannot do better than to leave our careers to him? I do believe it.

I am grateful to Shelly Miller for hosting the first version of this on “Redemption’s Beauty.”

The Zigzag Ways of God’s Blessing

By Anita Mathias

Joseph had a rarefied spiritual gift: God spoke to him through his dreams, and he could interpret the dreams of others.

In the night, which belongs to the Lord, he sees his sheaf stand upright while his brother’s sheaves bow to it. He sees the sun and moon and eleven stars bow to him.

He understands that he is destined for eminence.

* * *

And what should the career path of one destined for eminence look like?

Joseph is thrown into a cistern, sold into slavery. He faces humiliation and obscurity.

Was his dream delusory? Had God abandoned him?

Nope.

* * *

“God was with Joseph,” (Gen 39:2) we are told, “and he prospered.” “The Lord was with him and gave him success in everything he did.”

The blessing on Joseph spreads outwards. “The Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field.”

And so the career of Joseph progressed from strength to strength?

Nope.

* * *

He had proved his resilience. He had proved his integrity.

He now had to be moved upwards from a comfortable small position to a position of even greater influence.

* * *

Dick Woodward, pastor of the church I attended in Williamsburg Virginia, said that the way God moves you on is a kick from behind and a pull from in front. ( And I think it’s best to stay put where you are, whether at church or work or city or neighbourhood until you feel the kick and pull.)

Potiphar’s wife provided the kick with her false accusations.

And ironically, Joseph was kicked upstairs into the social circle of those who personally waited on Pharaoh.

If anyone had the right to indulge in self-pity, it was Joseph in the dungeon, cast there for his righteous choice.

But dungeon was his means of elevation, the pull upwards.

While Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favour in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. (Gen 39: 21-23).

He interprets dreams in prison, but with slight cockiness. Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams. (Gen. 40:8)

He asks the cupbearer to remember him, but with self-pity. For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.

He has yet to become the steady luminous man whose eyes are on the Lord, who sees everything in life as coming to him mediated through the Lord’s hands, because the Lord permitted it; who knows that the Lord could make him fruitful in the land of his suffering (Gen. 41:52), and turn what his enemies meant for evil into good (Gen. 50:20).

+++

Another two years alone in the company of the Lord in the dungeons, and he will approach the interpretation of dreams with humility.
Pharaoh: ” I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.”
“I cannot do it,” Joseph replied to Pharaoh, “but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.”(Gen. 41)
His eyes now fixed on God, Joseph is able not only to use his administrative gifts wisely, but also able, remarkably, to forgive his brothers–thus helping to save many lives.

+++

I would have expected the life of someone chose, blessed and anointed by God to be marked by happiness, success, prosperity and protection.

And Joseph’s life was ultimately marked by all of these things.

But not all the time.

+++

His life teaches us:

Nothing can stop you doing the work which God has called you to do.

God may have a beautiful plan for your life, but other people may throw you into a well and sell you into slavery.

You will rise.

You may do your job brilliantly and be slandered and thrown into prison.

You will rise.

You may comfort and help people with your words, but in their season of power they may forget you until it’s convenient for them.

But still you will rise.

+++

When will you rise?

In God’s time.

When you let go of bitterness, perhaps. When you forgive. When you realize that all things come from God, your gifts, your health, your wealth, your freedom, your intellect, your very life.

Then you will indeed have grown into your destiny. You will have become worthy of it.

You will have become one who can “save many lives,” (Gen 50:20).

I am grateful to Elizabeth Marshall who first hosted this reflection.

Who can Stand Before Jealousy?

By Anita Mathias

Who can Stand Before Jealousy? (Prov. 27:4).

If Joseph, whose story in Genesis I am re-reading, realised the dangers of provoking jealousy, he could have avoided 20 hard years.

Joseph, his father’s favourite, given an glorious robe…. His brothers, of course, “hated him, and could not speak a kind word to him.”

Joseph, whose dreams are prescient. He is gifted prophetically–but not yet gifted in wisdom or prudence or sensitivity or insight into human nature.

These he will develop in the school of experience.

* * *

My sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.

Was this a dream to share with jealous brothers?

“And they hated him all the more because of his dream.” (Gen 37:8). Of course, they did,

His next naïve revelation, “the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me,” dooms him.

“Here comes that dreamer. Let’s kill him,” his brothers say.

There is a reason God speaks to us in dreams, when the world is still and quiet, and there are no witnesses.

Dreams are meant to be kept secret. There is power in secrecy; power in containment.

* * *

I sympathise with Joseph. All my life, I have been a Joseph-Tigger-Kanga who bounds up to share good news—a prize, a publication, a financial windfall, career breakthrough… I often still do, instinctively.

It’s an extrovert’s reflex—joy seems more real when shared.

But is it safe? Not really. I have had things blocked by jealous people by sharing them before everything was signed and sealed. Sometimes, I can see a frenemy’s irritation rise as I share a success—pursed lips, a put down, the topic abruptly changed, a quick trip to the loo.

I understand Joseph’s impulse, but I do not want to land up in a well.

So the Tigger-impulse must be tempered by other principles.

1) The Golden Rule. Love Does not Boast (1 Cor. 13:4)

How do I feel about other’s success? If it’s a friend whom I, or my children, don’t feel competitive with–happy.

However, when old writing friends do far better than I—as many have done!!–I am happy if they are better writers, and disgruntled, if they are worse. I do confess it!

When old friends become famous, as some have done, I wish them well, but sometimes find it hard to continue the friendship as it was. Their success exacerbates my own guilt about my disorganisation, wasted time, time lost to turbulent emotions which I should have sorted out through scripture, prayer and surrender.

My joy at a friend’s success is not unmixed with sadness at my own relative failure. So why should I expect greater nobility out of everyone else?

2) Let another man praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips. (Prov. 27:2)

This is something I often say to myself, both when tempted to show off, even obliquely, and when I hear someone praise themselves on social media.

Russell Baker in his memoir Growing Up, reported his mother’s aphorism, “If you don’t blow your trumpet who’ll blow it for you?”

Yes, what if another man’s lips don’t praise you?

So be it. So be it. Obscurity develops character just as much as celebrity, no doubt, does. “Humility, like darkness, reveals the heavenly lights” Thoreau wrote. Or, to quote Proverbs, “Humility comes before honour.” The way of humility has mysterious power, as the way of forgiveness does.

3) Boasting Cheats You of the Chance to Learn

Christian Twitter comedian Sammy Rhodes satirizes circuitous showing off: “This rain is really coming down. Speaking of rain, did I ever tell you about that time Rainn Wilson defended me on Twitter?”

It is a better use of time to turn the conversation around to the unique individual I am talking to and learn everything interesting about them, since I already know everything interesting about myself (well–until I go to therapy!)

As Estelle in Great Expectations was raised to break men’s hearts, I was raised to achieve, to be Amazing Me.

Ah, the freedom of leaving that behind me, and instead being who I am: the Beloved. To have relationships based on who I am, not what I’ve done.

4) Jesus

Jesus, ah Jesus, our role-model! How modest and discreet he was, secretive even. How he adjured people not to tell others about his miraculous deeds. How he was scolded by his disciples for acting in secret. How he left the region when people came hunting for him, seeking miracles, seeking to make him king.

I often think of what my friend Paul who discipled me said, “90% of wisdom is keeping your mouth shut.”

The sun, moon and eleven stars would have bowed to Joseph, anyway, for that was his destiny. He was gifted; he had impressive administrative gifts, integrity and, eventually, people skills too.

Joseph learned wisdom and prudence through twenty years of suffering.

But his story is recorded so we may learn without pits, wells and dungeons.

* * *

This was first published at my friend Kris Camealy’s beautiful blog

In which there is Poetic Justice, for God is a Poet, but there is also Mercy

By Anita Mathias

Even while Esau was out hunting his father’s favourite wild game, Jacob and Rebecca slaughtered and cooked two choice young goats. Jacob served these to Isaac, pretending to be Esau, stealing Esau’s blessing.

A cruel deception.

And, uncannily, years later, in his own old age, Jacob’s sons sold his favourite son into slavery, dipping Joseph’s precious robe in the blood of a slaughtered goat, claiming he had been killed by a wild beast.

Tricked with a goat, just as he had tricked his own father with a goat.

* * *

The seeds we sow, we reap, measure for measure. They lie dormant in the earth, sometimes for years, then yield their harvest.

The good we have done yields blessing, and the evil we’ve done conjures shadowy forces against us.

And that’s scary if we have sown bad seeds, have said and done less than luminous things, things we are now ashamed of.

* * *

But we do not live in a mechanical universe. We live in a just universe, shot through by mercy like a golden cord.

The law of sowing and reaping is the deep magic from the dawn of time, in C. S. Lewis’s phrase. However there is a more powerful force still: the force of mercy, unleashed by the willing victim who bore in his body the punishment for all the bad seeds we have ever sown.

And so mercy triumphs over justice. The deep magic from before the dawn of time.

Jacob recovers Joseph; Esau was, in fact, blessed.

* * *

For myself, I want to sow good seed for the rest of my life.

But the bad seed I have sown? The things I am ashamed of? The things I did because of my small, bewildered, wounded heart?

I confess them.

I ask God’s forgiveness. I ask Christ’s blood to cover them.

And I step into the waterfall of mercy, the mercy that triumphs over justice because the One who loves the world is good.

I ask him to let all the bad seeds I’ve sown, which are still dormant, die.

And I ask him for grace to overplant much good seed to crowd out the bad seed.

And I ask him, the ultimate genetic engineer, to somehow, even now, change the DNA of the bad seed I’ve planted, and bring good from them.

And I place my life and future in His hands.

Holly Grantham kindly hosted this. Thanks Holly.

Living in a Story Still Being Written

By Anita Mathias

It can take ten thousand years for the light from the most distant stars in our galaxy to reach us.

And if the speed of light can be so slow, if its story unravels so glacially, why are we astonished when we fail to immediately understand the story of our lives?

* * *

Joseph, in the well, abandoned, betrayed.

All his dreams of glory—had come to this.

It seemed utterly meaningless–because the next chapter had not yet to be written.

* * *

Joseph in charge of Potiphar’s household.

The shepherd boy becomes the head butler in an Egyptian country house.

Was that the meaning of the well, and the humiliations of slavery at the hands of the hairy Ishmaelites?

Only part of it. The story was still being written. He was a character in a story someone else was writing. How could he understand his own story in medias res?

* * *

The dungeon, punishment for righteousness.

“But, Lord, I thought I understood the plot you were writing. Now WHAT are you doing?”

Utterly forsaken.

* * *

But the dungeon was the way for the butler of a small manor to meet royalty.

Again, God blessed Joseph. Again, he rose to the top. And once again, apparent failure and humiliation were the means of Joseph’s elevation to an entirely different social, economic and political circle.

Let no one underestimate the creativity of the Master Craftsman of the Universe.

* * *

We cannot understand the story of our lives while we are living them.

We do not understand the significance of each plot element yet. They seem random, inexplicable, and cruel. It takes the retrospective glance to understand.

* * *

And my story? It has foolishness in it, ah so much—money and opportunity and years and talents squandered.

It has sin in it, my sin, and sins against me. It has apparent dead ends, missed opportunities, wastage, stupidity and heartbreak.

* * *

And because a master artist is still working on it, still writing it, it has gold in it, infinite possibilities for redemption.

I do not yet know how God will weave all the plot elements together into an eternal beautiful story, and make it all the apparent red herrings and random plot twists work out for good, but I know he will. He’s that smart.

And I trust him.

“You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, for the saving of many lives”

By Anita Mathias

So Joseph tells his brothers who betrayed him, tried to kill him, sold him into slavery.

He let it go, left vengeance with God.

Forgiveness is easier when you can see how God truly made it work out for good.

In a situation, in which I was greatly wronged, 2 years ago, I have seen, amazingly, how God made it work out for good. The direction in which I was blocked in led to my life turning to other life-giving, nutritious directions.

And when we cannot see how God meant it for good? As Joseph did not for many, many years.

We take it on faith, that eventually, in ways we cannot yet see, God will make it work out for good.

And somehow or the other, we have to struggle not to retain a record of wrongs, to let go of our grievances against those who have wronged us. Yes, they wronged me, but I am decided to let it go, because you, Lord, can and will make it work out for good.

Grace, Lord, that is what we need!