The Prodigal Pig

 

Me:  Prodigal, Did you go to church today?

 

Prodigal:  Sure did!  Did you go?

 

Me:  Yep, I wanted to share a little with what a learned today.

 

Sunday morning, for me is about waking up and going to go hear the Word of God.  I treasure the chance to walk in and worship God and to be able to learn and be encouraged by His Word.  For there was a time when that wasn’t in my life.  That time had no peace and joy, but lets move back to this morning and save that story for another day.

I dressed in my Sunday best and said hello to a couple of people and then sat down in the pew.  See our church believes in expository preaching.  We take a chapter in the bible and we study this word for word.  We have been in the book of Genesis.  Justin our preacher was going to preach from Chapter 40 and 41.  I had read over this the night before so I had a refresher for this morning.

This chapter is about Joseph when he was in prison.  Some of you might not know the story of Joseph so I suggest you to read it.  It is a very good story!  Joseph is one of my favorite stories. In fact just to give you some back ground on me.  Several years ago I was able to lead devotions and speak to women in women’s fellowship.  God blessed me with the chance to write with God’s guiding many devotions and then share them on a platform with about 50 women at a time.  I remember at one time I had about a month to prepare and I was going to try and share about the story of Joseph.  So for a month, I studied and prayed over this story.   I still love it to this day and I could on and on and on, but once again I am off track.  So I had an interest in this story from a personal perspective that maybe others did not have.  So Justin starts preaching in Chapter 40 1-4.

1 And it came to pass after these things, that the butler of the king of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the king of Egypt.

2 And Pharaoh was wroth against two of his officers, against the chief of the butlers, and against the chief of the bakers.

3 And he put them in ward in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound.

4 And the captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he served them: and they continued a season in ward.

He suddenly points out in verse 4 that the captain of the guard was Potiphar.  The same one who’s wife had accused Joseph of rape in the previous chapter and landed him in prison.  Now I know I just showed my ignorance. I really I had not noticed that before.  So I just praised God for His Word being new everyday!

See this little insight changed a lot for me and the story of Joseph.  Now the story had a new detailed that really brought more focus into the whole picture.  See I think this points out more and more that Joseph really was following God when he was alone all those years in prison.  You want to know why I think that.  Because others response to Joseph.  Potiphar did not have Joseph put to death which was the first clue that people knew Joseph’s real character.  The second clue is that people forgot about Joseph.  Also Joseph’s response while forgotten and lied about.  There is no way someone who is not following God would respond in compassion and forgiveness after being forgotten for two years and lied about unless they were following God.  We are too selfish as people.  In our society everyone has no patience.  So how do you keep serving for two years with compassion and forgiveness?  The only answer is Joseph had to be following God.  I can imagine that Joseph got up every morning and loved God so much!  That Joseph bowed down and surrendered his life to God who was worth it.  When God had Joseph suffer and wait, Joseph counted it all joy to show the love that God had first showed Joseph.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org