When you're feeling a little chopped up…

I was slicing apples early Friday morning when I noticed a gift from my husband on the counter — a book (yes, we speak the same love-language). It was The Church Planting Wife, an encouraging grace-drenched volume that reads like a warm embrace. (FYI: Christine Hoover writes at gracecoversme.com and her blog-name is spot-on. She’s covered in grace, and I’m soaking up every word.) Inside the cover Jeff wrote a note, reminding me it was exactly six months ago that day we made the final decision to do this crazy church-planting venture.

I had no idea how significant the book it would be. The next day was rough, and when I opened the cover Saturday night and began to read, tears streamed down my cheeks. How does she know exactly how I feel??  

The truth is, any woman would be encouraged and strengthened by the truths in this book. We all face seasons of loneliness, fear, discouragement. We all have highs and lows. I personally think it’s foolish for ministry wives to set themselves apart as somehow separate from other women. All our struggles are the same, they just dress themselves up differently.

Ladies, I believe you all are called to ministry. To leadership. To greatness (AKA servanthood) in the Kingdom of heaven. Whether you teach standing on a platform or kneeling beside a child, you instruct others. Whether you have 1,000 “followers” (no idea what that means, by the way) or 1 follower (who has your cowlick), someone is watching your life and walking in your steps.

This is a pretty big task, and I was reminded today of Joseph. Joseph was destined to be a leader and God sovereignly prepared him for the weighty responsibility of leading a nation … by sending him trials. Earlier this morning my running-pal reminded me (as I gasped for breath up the hill) that the trials I was encountering were enabling me to better serve, love, and understand people.

Yup. I was afraid of that.

So let’s revisit briefly all that Joseph encountered as God prepared him to lead and influence others:

• Betrayal (Gen 37): Joseph first learns a little bit about human nature, the hard way. He learns about jealousy and hatred, and about the harsh reality that it takes very little for people to turn on you.  You can go from hero to hated in an alarmingly short amount of time.
• Slavery (Gen 37): Instead of killing Joseph, his brothers just sell him to a band of Midianites as a slave, who then sold him in Egypt to Potipher, an officer of Pharoah.  In a matter of moments he went from seeing himself as the up and coming ruler of all to the low and forsaken slave of all.
• Temptation (Gen 39): Since Joseph was handsome (v.6), his master’s wife went after him and sought to seduce him, even going so far as to tempt him daily, “Lie with me,” not just once but day after day.  I can only imagine that the wife of Potipher (who could have any woman he wanted) was probably a smokin’ hotty. And Joseph was young and single and the temptation was right in front of him, literally beckoning him, every single day. And yet He resisted. How? Because he rightly knew the nature of sin, that it is against God that we sin (v.9).
• Wrongfully Accused (Gen 39): What reward does Joseph get for his firm resolve and upstanding morals?  Potipher’s wife lies about him, and he is thrown in prison.  *It’s worth noting that at about this place along the journey is when I would throw in the towel.  It would seem that no matter what he does it never works out. What good is it to be faithful to God? Yes, Joseph doesn’t. Because true leaders don’t.
• Forgotten (Gen 40): By God’s power, Joseph is able to interpret the cupbearer’s and cheif baker’s dreams while they were in prison. Though the chief cupbearer promised to remember Joseph when he was released from prison.  Yet, verse 23 tells us, “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, but forgot him.”  After all the excitement, all the hope, all the anticipation of freedom, after all that is built up in Joseph’s mind–he is once again forgotten. For two more years nothing happens.  It would seem that hope is lost.

Psalm 105 gives a great commentary on this story.  Speaking of Joseph it says,

“[God] send a man ahead of them, Joseph who was sold as a slave.  His feet were hurt with fetters; his neck was put in a collar of iron; until what He said came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him.”  (17-19)

Until God’s prophetic word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him.  For all of us, who know God has called us to something (we all are called to something!), are we prepared for the “training” God may have for us?  Though I loved going through seminary, it is not sitting in a classroom that prepares one for ministry–it is the opportunity to trust God in the hard times, the betrayal, the times spent in a “prison” of waiting, the feeling forgotten. We have to be chopped up before we’re useful for soup. Before we can be poured out to nourish and bless others.  The good news is that Joseph was prepared. He flourished in saving the nation of Israel because he had the wisdom, perseverance  humility, and grace, which was wrought in his life through the crucible of suffering.

What are you going through right now?  How might God be using it as training for the future beautiful works He has prepared in advance for you to do? I’m receiving this alongside you. Thanks for reading.