Genesis 45:1

New International Version (NIV)

“Have everyone leave my presence!”

For meditation

Dealing with our past hurts is one of the best ways to calm the raging storms in our hearts that nobody sees, and to clear the fog that screens our bright and joyful life in Christ Jesus. It’s a painful process, but rewarding nonetheless. Psychologists know this too well when they take a patient back in time and walk them to the present for their healing. Many shut themselves from this process and suffer under the weight of guilt, shame, defeat and dishonor. Some move away to far places to bury their past behind them until something triggers a shock wave and cruelly unleashes a flood of excruciating pain all over again.

Joseph was a young man who suffered one of the worst forms of sibling hatred and hostile vendetta. Detesting their father’s preferential treatment of Joseph, his brothers sold him into slavery. Egypt received him into a warm home that made him forget his past – or so it seemed. But like a plaster snapped off a dried wound, Mrs. Potiphar delivered her poisonous pack of lust and lies that sent Joseph to prison. We hear the roaring of the deep-seated storm in Joseph’s heart when he bid the chief cupbearer goodbye:

“But when it goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. 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” (Gen. 40:14-15).

Can you imagine Joseph’s agony when the chief cupbearer forgot about him (23)?

But God’s plan is never thwarted. We fret because we don’t know the path of his training regimen for us. When the pain lingers in spite of seeming success, it crushes our spirit. Many embrace addictive remedies to carry them along their pretentious path. For Joseph, God delivered him with a fulfilled dream from his past. However, the dots were connected only when the famine hit, and his family came to bow before him – brothers first, and then parents. What transpired between him and his brothers – the harsh interrogation, the bags of silver in their sacks, the detention of Simeon, the lunch with his brothers, the silver cup in Benjamin’s sack, and the final moment he revealed himself to them – all describe perfectly how Joseph stepped into his past and dealt with his pain and emotional struggles over the years. The climax vividly captures it for us.

“Joseph could no longer control himself … [so] he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” Then Joseph … made himself known to his brothers” (45:1).

Feel his pain and struggle; but more importantly, enter his joy when his dream came alive to him at last and he realized God’s workmanship and intention for all his trials.

“God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (7) … “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (50:20).

1. So, can you see what God is doing with your past hurts and pain?
2. Do you realize where He is leading you?
3. Can you step back into your past experiences, difficult as they may be, and thoroughly deal with them?
4. Can you forgive those who hurt you, as Joseph did, in light of God’s purpose for it?
5. How about asking to be forgiven and thus, releasing yourself into the blessed peace of God in Christ Jesus?

The choice is yours and mine to make today without hesitation, excuses or rationalization.

Shalom.