I hope you don’t mind me staying on the subject matter of the life of Joseph ben Israel for a few more posts. I suppose you have figured out by now that this historical figure is of significant interest to me. So much so, he is one of the inspirations behind my consulting and life-coaching business. There are thirteen chapters in the Book of Genesis focused on his life. When comparing the ink dedicated his life story, he ranks right up there behind Moses, David & Daniel. He is a significant figure in the unfolding drama of God interacting with mankind. His story, when understood properly in its historical and cultural context, is both inspirational and informative.

I think there is a great deal we can glean from the circumstances surrounding his life and how it played out in a very real world scenario. One of my personal frustrations is how often his and other biblical stories get “scrubbed” in religious circles. Joseph’s life was not a neat and tidy formula driven life like those so often portrayed in religious writings. His was messy, confusing, and at times contradictory to the paradigms handed down to us by well-meaning religious leaders. I think our lives mirror his to a great extent. To use a phrase commonly heard on the radio in military battles “it’s a messy situation on the ground here, Sir!

I GOT YOUR BACK

As we previously discussed in Oh Life! You Have Got to Be Kidding Me! once Joseph decided he wanted to continue to move forward after his unfair treatment, we saw him taking charge of his prison environment. His counsel was in demand and he was sought out by two former “White House” officials, both of whom had been suspected of foul play by the administration and thrown into prison. They were the Chuck Colson of their time in their fall from grace. While today we would view the Cupbearer and Baker as insignificant low level employees in the White House, in the context of their time they would be more equivalent to the Secret Service. Their responsibly was to insure the safety of the Egyptian King called a Pharaoh.

The term pharaoh meant “great or high house” denoting their preeminence in the society. Both these men, the Cupbearer and Baker, were placed in their positions to take a bullet for the President. In the ancient world poisoning was a common method of choice for eliminating someone in your way if you were ambitious. Given the primitive nature of science or medicine at the time, poisoning could often appear like death due to natural causes. Making matters even more delicate and complicated, most of the poisonings came at the hands of family members close to you!  Yes, often it was your own younger brothers who had it out for you. To insure your survival, your inner circle needed to remain small and a Secret Service team was assembled to prepare your food. Other members were assigned to eat the food first in your presence to see what affect it had on them. If someone started foaming at the mouth it was a clear indicator not to proceed with dinner. No antacids were going to help this situation.

Joseph, as we see in Genesis Chapter 40, found himself in a rather awkward situation. His first counseling session with the Cupbearer had proved to be a wonderful time of positive reinforcement. He had a clear sense of the Cupbearers future and was able to encourage him that this season of his life was temporary and he was moving on to bigger and better things. This diagnosis emboldened a fellow prisoner, a Baker, to ask for a consulting session for himself. I would imagine doctors who have to tell patients the “bad news” about their terminal health situation can identify with Joseph’s predicament. How do you tell someone that “you are about to die”? It’s an extremely uncomfortable thing to do. Joseph found himself having to navigate an emotionally explosive moment. He had to “man up” as we say.

REALITY CHECK TIME

I remember a few years ago having a rather sobering discussion about the responsibility of life and death decisions with my oldest son. He had just completed his Basic Training at Fort Benning before heading off to Ft Bragg to do his Special Forces training. His leadership skills were evident early on and his commanders appointed him a Platoon Sargent. As we all do when young, we underestimate the consequences of our decisions. In his case, when first given the responsibility of leadership, he underestimated the need for preparedness in undertaking a mission. In his first exercise he theoretically got most the men in his platoon killed. It shook him to the very core of his being! He later told me “I could not shake the weightiness of the consequences of my lack of preparation or ignorance. I got men killed!!!” I knew in that moment my son had transitioned from boy to man. From then on, he took his responsibilities very seriously and approached each training situation with the vigilance and maturity of a true leader.

Uncomfortable, these days is a word seen as anathema. Some of our Millennial children run from it as though it was the Black Plague. Here is the irony, while we helicopter parents have tried to build protective walls around our children to shield them from the bad monster named Uncomfortable, life affords them no such sanctuary. They are going to face him at every turn. Uncomfortable is now a psychological terrorist for a whole generation. As we so poignantly observe in Joseph’s life, God does not seem the least bit worried about him having to face Uncomfortable. In fact, like Joseph, it appears He allows life to play out on the Colosseum floor in our lives. There in the day to day grind we find ourselves clashing with Uncomfortable in regular battles. God seems to step aside while saying “Let the better man win! Sorry, Jesus ain’t fighting this battle for you.”

HAVEN’T WE ALREADY DANCED THIS DANCE?

Joseph’s seemingly unending battle with unfair and unjust would continue on for another two years. In a rather desperate attempt to extradite himself from facing uncomfortable, he would make a simple request as payment for his services. “Please don’t forget me” he asked of the Cupbearer. “But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison!” (Genesis 40:14) He was facing one of humanities worst fears… to be forgotten. None of us wants to be left out or forgotten, especially in those moments when we feel the most vulnerable.

One can only imagine the excitement he felt knowing that within three days the man he had helped was going to be once again standing in front of the Pharaoh. I wonder when the Cupbearer will tell the Pharaoh about me he wondered. As days turned into weeks, and no one came for him, you know he began to once again find himself being sucked down the drain of despair. Wow, once again I have been kind and helpful towards another human being and what did I get out of it… a big fat nothing! I can’t believe they blew me off like that. Why do people take advantage of me like this?  On and on the gears turned in his mind and yet there he was stuck in the same spot. Nothing was moving forward. Ugh!!!!

No one really knows what was going on inside the Cupbearer’s head. Was he someone who used others for his own selfish ambition and discarded them once he had what he wanted? We all have had painful experiences with those type of individuals. On the other hand, he could have been cautious or scared. I don’t find it unreasonable to conclude, after observing his cell mate’s head decapitated and his body impaled, that the Cupbearer might not have been emboldened to speak up!

Here is another painful reality check for younger generations; there are very few people who will ever put their neck on the line for you. Words are cheap and people throw them around like confetti. When it comes down to risk and potential loss, there is a very small percentage of people who will risk it for you. It is one of the sociological dynamics which explains why the majority in a population will keep silent when the powerful few commit atrocities. People generally are unwilling to put themselves at risk for others. It is a hard but important lesson to learn in life. One needs to have a sober understanding of the human soul before setting unrealistic expectations. Holding hands while singing “Kum By Yah” only happens at campfires!

GIVE ME SOME CREDIT HERE

How many of us have had to deal with others taking credit for our ideas? Legendary guitarist James Burton once told me that he was the one who actually wrote most of Susie Q which Dale Hawkins got credit for. His guitar work on the song is iconic. Given he was only 15 years old at the time and wasn’t of age to appear on legal documents, James was left off and only Dale’s name appears. To add insult to injury, the casual music listener assumes John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival wrote the song as it was their first #1 hit in 1968. History is filled with stories of inventors and innovators who only years later are given proper credit for their ideas. Most of the time this happens long after they have died. Women have suffered immeasurably in this regard.

There Joseph remained, caged in by a judicial system which had unfairly indicted him, while the guy he had just helped was wining and dining with the Rich & Famous. The Cupbearer was “Living Large” while Joseph toiled away in anonymity. It had to have been infuriating! For Joseph it must have felt like his existence was a real life version of the children’s game Chutes & Ladders®. He had been reduced to being nothing more than a piece on a board game who was at the mercy of a roll of the dice. While he was powerless over events shaping the big picture, what he could control was his attitude and his effort. In that regard he would have received high marks as he was exemplary. He continued on with his duties as Prison Administrator having no idea if and when anything in his life was going to change.

HE MAY NOT COME WHEN YOU LIKE BUT HE’LL BE RIGHT ON TIME

In 1994 Gospel singer Dottie Peoples released the song “He’s an On Time God” If you enjoy inspirational music you need to listen this song. My fingers are dancing across the keyboard and my feet are moving across the carpet as I listen to the song again. I got the witness sister! The song reflects a similar scenario repeated often throughout the history of God’s people. So often when their backs were against the wall, and the next step is certain death or disaster, God intervenes in the most miraculous ways. Joseph was one of the early adopters of this 11:59 deliverance pattern which repeats itself over millennia of time.

How God would interject himself into the situation was what I term a “Yeah-But”. These are situations whereby there is a commonly accepted paradigm the majority of religious people have adopted or accepted. These I call the “Yeahs” The one I’m referring to here, is how most of us think when God speaks, He only speaks to and through his own people in religious settings. We don’t expect or listen for the voice of God through those who are not a part of the Christian community. We also tend to find ourselves going to church to listen to the word of God. We have very defined boundaries as to what God can or can’t do and who He can or can’t speak to and through. Where it gets interesting is how often it is recorded in the books of the bible how God spoke to and through “pagan” leaders. These I call “Buts” as they are the paradigm busters. Some of these leaders were deemed gods by their own people, so we have numerous scenarios where God is talking to people others perceive as “gods”.

IT’S OOKIE AND IT’S SPOOKY

Something which rarely gets discussed in the business world is spiritual dynamics. It is an uncomfortable subject topic because it too is often viewed as illogical in the scientifically driven, formula based world of business. I will let you in briefly behind the scenes in my world; virtually all the people I have worked with over the last 30 years, Christian or not, have had some form of spiritual experience they cannot ascribe to coincidence, luck or some other rational means of interpretation. They rarely discuss these events out of fear of embarrassment at the hands of others. Those who have found great success often feel a bit guilty as they know, while the public is lauding their genius, they are keenly aware a higher power has been at work guiding their lives.

Did you know Van Gogh painted his dreams and Niels Bohr saw the structure of an atom in a dream before he proved it?  Einstein saw the principle of relativity in a dream and Paul McCartney wrote the song “Yesterday” in a dream. Tesla often dreamed of his inventions first. Ben Franklin’s dream of King George III caused him to push the Founding Fathers to declare independence from England and Abraham Lincoln dreamed of his funeral two weeks before he was assassinated.  Harriet Tubman would get dreams as to which safe house to hide runaway slaves while General George Patton would get strategic battle plans in his dreams.  He often believed his dreams over the intelligence reports he received.  It is actually quite amazing how much of human history has been affected by dreams people had. The subsequent search for understanding led to great discoveries and some of history’s most influential events.

It was a perplexing dream given by God to a pagan King which was about to change the trajectory of two nations. The whole situation had been brewing for quite a while. Unbeknownst to the pieces on the board, their lives were on a collision course of divine destiny and intervention. At this moment in time the two key pieces in this divine drama could not have been in more diametric situations. One was the leader of a nation of over a million people and the most powerful ruler in the known world. The other was an unknown languishing in prison feeling like his life had derailed. Suddenly, at the right moment in time, everything Joseph had gone through was about to make sense. Stay tuned…