Although I have been likened to the Biblical Job, what he went through losing his sons & daughters, attacking him personally with boils on his skin and what not, I get where one would be so confident in comparing my life with Job. Or Moses, whom had a speech impediment and because of that he used that as an excuse why God should use someone else. Yet God used Moses to deliver the Israelites from being captive in Egypt under his step-brother, Ramses, who was Pharaoh at that time. However, neither of these stories am I going to use for my comparative story.
Joseph was the youngest of his 10 brothers, until Jacob & Rachel were pregnant again with Benjamin. However, before Benjamin was a even a thought in the mind of Jacob & Rachel, Joseph had two dreams (which are recorded in the Bible) to which his brothers would have to bow down to him (Genesis 37). With this revelation, his brothers didn’t like him to much, so when given the opportunity they took full advantage, beating him up in an inch of his life. Then his brothers threw him down in a deep pit and waited for a band of marauders (Ishmaelites) to sell Joseph into slavery. Along the way, the Ishmaelites then sold him to to Potiphar where he became an overseer of all his house and put him in charge of all Potiphar had.
You may be thinking, “What? No, that couldn’t happen in this day and age!” I would have to agree with you, except compared with my own life I felt trapped in the loneliness of slavery due to my traumatic brain injury which I suffered shortly after I graduated high school with being a part of the National Honors Society.
After a while of Joseph working there, Potiphar’s wife had taking a liking to Joseph; then, she invited Joseph to sleep with her. But Joseph was a man of integrity, and said, “No. Your husband put me in-charge of everything except you!” After a time, by the account in Genesis, as soon as he was all alone in the house with her, she once again said, “Lie with me.” Yet Joseph, being a man of integrity, refused her advances; however, he left a piece of his garment in her hand. But Potiphar’s wife, knowing that they were all alone in the house together, yelled rape. When Potiphar received word that his wife was raped, he had Joseph put in prison.
During my early teen years through college, working out was part of my regimen, and I was pretty built. Yet, at the age of fourteen I received my calling under a basketball hoop outside of my school. I didn’t know to what, so I decided that I was going to be a youth pastor since I was in the youth group, and I loved it. Around the same time I started experience Déjà vu moments. It was not to long before it turned into holy Dèjà vu moments. After a few years had passed of having these holy Dèjá vu instances and about two weeks from my high school graduation, I experienced a dream (or nightmare) of me being in a hospital, on a bed, not being able to move for quite some time. Just five and a half weeks later, I would find myself with a traumatic brain injury in an one month coma. I would find myself just like the holy Dèjá vu moment or instance I had just weeks earlier.
Sadly, my comparison with the life of Joseph doesn’t end there as Joseph was beaten to an inch of his life just as I was in the horrific, almost fatalistic car accident I suffered. Yet, both Joseph and I knew to whom to call on even if He does not fix it-Jesus Christ.
However, in comparing myself to Old Testament characters, I have a physical, permanent limp just like Joseph’s father, Jacob. In speech, Moses who struggled with a speech impediment; I, too, have trouble speaking due to my disability of expressive aphasia. Yet, later in the Bible, God inspires the Apostle Paul to write this,
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)
Which this leads me to believe, God is in the business of using unsuspecting people as His tools.
Darren
(The Author/Administrator of
True Life Christianity)
TrueLifeChristianity.com 