Genesis 37:14-15

New International Version

When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

For Meditation

A taxi driver found me—a ten-year-old kid, in the middle of the second-largest city in Ghana—Kumasi. How I got on a bus from Koforidua, my place of birth, to Kumasi still baffles me. What story did I tell the driver, and why did he believe me?

I remember I paid the fare, though. I was running away from my father. My mother lived in a different town—Juaben, after their divorce. On one of her visits to Koforidua, she appeased me handsomely with some money to continue living with my father—but I had other plans. Maybe she would have chosen a better bribe if she knew what I would do with the money, but it was too late.

The bus arrived late in Kumasi, where I planned to transit to avoid detection by the local drivers who knew my mother. Unfortunately, the last bus to my hometown had just left when we arrived in Kumasi. Stranded, I had no clue about where to turn.

Providentially, a man found me. I was asking about my elder brother nobody knew about—like searching for a needle in a haystack. He was a taxi driver who knew my brother, also a taxi driver in a city I had never visited. The man could not find my brother where he thought he would, so he took me to his house and put me on a dawn bus to Juaben the following day.

Who was this man?

Joseph had a similar adventure in his teens at Shechem. If he were running away from someone like I was, it would not have been his father. It would have been his brothers.

Sent by Jacob, his father, to check on his brothers and bring a report to him, Joseph could not locate them in Shechem, where they should have been. While he wandered in the fields, a man found Joseph and directed him to Dothan, where his brothers would be (Genesis 37:14-15).

Who was this man? Would he have sent Joseph to his brothers if he knew what they would do to him (19-28)? Was the man an angel or a mere human used by God to help send Joseph towards his God-ordained destination and blessing—with his family they did not know?

These are questions with answers only in heaven—where we will be someday soon. For now, we can only comfort ourselves with the truth that God sees us wherever we are and knows our lostness—needing direction into His blessing through the suffering of Christ Jesus as Savior and Lord (Acts 4:12).

Maybe you are wandering and lost in your singleness, marriage, finances, workplace, health report, or in your Shechem or Kumasi. May a man from God find you and send you towards your destiny in Pharaoh’s court, though you may have to endure solitude in a well, a slave market, the accusation of Potiphar’s wife, and imprisonment. Amen!