A PRISON EXPERIENCE

Genesis 39:21 “the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.”

At this point in Joseph’s life, it would have been easy to give in to despair. Joseph was unjustly imprisoned, in fact imprisoned for doing the right thing. You may be saying, but I am not in prison. Are you so sure? Prison comes in different forms for different people. We can be imprisoned by our circumstances, trapped in situations that we are powerless to change. You can be imprisoned by the expectations of others. You may be imprisoned by guilt. Many of us are walking around with a load of guilt, from things that may have happened years before. Others may have forgiven us but we have not forgiven ourselves. Regardless of what “prison experience” we may find ourselves facing, Joseph can provide us with insights for coping.

Joseph knew that God had not and would not forsake him. Our scripture even tells us that he found favor while in prison. We learn from this story that although Joseph did not deserve to be in prison he responded to it beautifully. What is important was the way in which his character grew during his imprisonment. In similar circumstances another man might have become harsh, bitter or withdrawn. Not Joseph. Prison actually strengthened Joseph’s character.

C.S. Lewis in his book “The Problem of Pain” says, “God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.” We have two choices, we can become bitter and disillusioned or we can use our difficulties as a means of displaying our hope and trust in God.

The tragedy of our day is that some Christians are teaching that if a Christian merely has enough faith, they will never suffer, for they say that the death of Christ provides deliverance from all adversity and affliction. Had Joseph believed that if he only had enough faith he could instantly be delivered from his trouble his faith would have been devastated by the fact that his troubles did not go away. The truth is that God is not obligated to make us wealthy or well liked or free of trouble. God has promised to be with those who belong to him wherever they find themselves and to bring them to maturity, but he does not promise to pamper us or to jump through our hoops. Eventually, Joseph was rewarded with a degree of freedom and unusual responsibility in the prison itself. Because he was free of bitterness, he became useful as an instrument of God.

God works out in the lives of his children for their greatest good as he promised in Romans 8:28. Even in the most difficult of situations, he plans to favor us. Although, it can sometimes be tough to see, his favor even exists in the worst of times. God knows exactly where we are and exactly what we’re going through. It is his plan to bring us out of our “prison experience”. In doing so, we will find ourselves in a better place than where we first were. It will be the place God intended for us to be and we will find the contentment and joy we’ve always longed for.