Silent but Present 1

Hello Blogfam,

I am very sorry my long break. I hope you've been letting your light shine before others.

Now, let's jump right in to our word for today... It's a series

As a mature Christian, you have to get past just trusting God's word to also trusting His silence.

At times, in fact, a lot of times, we want God to tell us what, why and when things will happen in our lives but God chooses to be silent, we pray and even fast, but we don't hear anything from God, it is in times like this that your faith is needed most, you have to learn to trust God even when you don't feel Him near or hear Him speak, you've got to trust the things He said to you in the past and not let go. Let's take some lessons from the life of Joseph in the book of Genesis.

Imagine how Joseph felt when, after he narrated his dreams to his brothers, he got sold off to slavery. Imaging how difficult it must have been for him to trust the "word" from his past that his brothers would bow to him when instead of reigning, he ended up in Potiphar's house as a slave. Let us not leave out the little details here though, the Bible says in Genesis 39: 2-6 that "The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master.... So, Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate." these verses here show us that we can prosper even in the process of waiting for the fulfillment of God's promises, but we have to be careful, to keep our gaze on our promise so that we do not get comfortable in the process instead of trusting God to get us to the destination. This must have been a very confusing time in Joseph's life, I don't know how God and Joseph rolled back in those days but if I were in his shoes, our conversation would probably have gone like this:

God: Hello Joseph, you see, I am with you always, even in slavery.

Joseph: Oh, thank you God, I appreciate your presence but this in no way feels or looks like what I saw in my dreams, I dreamt of dominion, not being a chief slave, I mean, I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful but, I'm pretty sure this isn't what you revealed to me in my dreams....

Now, imagine how even more confused and angry Joseph must have felt when instead of God fighting for him, He allowed Potiphar's wife get away with not just accusing him of sexual assault but also getting him imprisoned. I know we're supposed to look on the bright side of things, and the Bible says God was with him in even in the prison and caused him to find favor with the prison warden (Genesis 39: 20 - 23) but we still cannot overlook the fact that the prison wasn't a part of Joseph's dream. 

Another lesson that we can and should learn here is that, even though Joseph's present situation did not look anything like his dreams, he kept on being responsible and putting his best effort forward. God's favor or not, I don't think the both Potiphar and the prison warden would have entrusted everything to Joseph if he didn't prove himself to be hardworking and committed to his work. So, I urge you today, to live by the word of God in Ecclesiastes 9: 10b (Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might) and Colossians 3:23 (Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters) because our work is probably one of the greatest testimonies of our faith!

To be continued!!!