Continuance
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence. Genesis 45:3 NASB
My father – In his splendid book, The Exodus You Almost Passed Over,[1] Rabbi David Fohrman demonstrates that Joseph likely suffered severe emotional trauma when he was sold into captivity. But not merely at the hands of his brothers. Fohrman suggests that while the reader knows Jacob had nothing to do with the crime, Joseph doesn’t know this. As far as Joseph is concerned, his father sent him into a trap, deliberately designed to remove him from the family already annoyed with his pretensions to greatness. After all, Joseph has no evidence that Jacob made any attempt to rescue him (he does not know that his brothers have reported him dead). He does know that his father commanded him to go to his brothers. And he has family stories of past betrayal. Abraham attempts to sacrifice Isaac, Joseph’s grandfather. Jacob deceives his own father. Why shouldn’t Joseph conclude that it is all happening again—to him.
This logic provides explanation for Joseph’s actions once he reaches power in Egypt. He names his children for his personal sense of abandonment. He makes no attempt to communicate with his father. He accepts the foster-parenting of Pharaoh. In the end, Joseph appears to be an adopted Egyptian.
And so do we. All those family traumas come to rest with us. We decide what we will make of them, and how they will define who we are and how we behave. We might know that there is a God of our fathers, but He will identified with our perceived experiences with our own parents. We know only the truth that we know. Only the omniscient reader of the tale knows what is really happening. And therein lies the problem. When we read the stories in the Bible, we are the omniscient, external observer. We have God’s point-of-view. That often prevents us from seeing the stories as our own. We have to set aside the heavenly view and enter into the human scene. We have to ask, “What if it were me? How would I perceive this?”
“Why do we need to do this,” you might ask. “Why not accept God’s view as the truth and be satisfied with that?” The answer is simple and profound. If you don’t see the world from the perspective of the actors in the biblical drama, you will fail to notice that your story also has only a human perspective. You don’t know what God is doing with you. You don’t have an omniscient reader’s insight into your own life. You are in the story, not just reading the story. The actors in the Bible are just like you, struggling to understand what is happening. Learn from them! And remember, God was working in their lives when they didn’t even know it. So He does the same today. His invisible hand is invisible—until it’s over.
Topical Index: story, trauma, Joseph, father, Genesis 45:3
[1] This valuable book confirms my analysis of the family trauma of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (see Crossing). If you purchase it, please do so from Fohrman’s web site. http://shop.alephbeta.org/products/passover-book-the-exodus-you-almost-passed-over
Am truly amazed, maybe stunned. I had JUST finished reading Rabbi Fohrman’s book, “The Queen You Thought You Knew,” MOMENTS before your email arrived. Because he lights the fire of interest at the end of his Esther book, i immediately went to amazon.ca to find that they only sell the kindle edition. Then i noticed that three emails arrived and, yours being one of them, clicked on it to read this! What a “sign,” LOL Anyway, i’ve ordered the book, but am still shaking my head!
By the way, Skip, you share a birthday with my Mom, who turned 90 this past monday, 9 may.
There was a time I despaired for the salvation of my family and loved ones, and that despair defined my own sense of lostness. Humpty Dumpty had fallen off my wall. To my human eyes, all seemed lost. Every effort I made just confirmed the disaster further. We were under a curse and there was nothing to be done about it. Whole decades went by in this place, with no way out and no relief. I finally got to the bitter end of my resources and my health. And there, in that place, I found Him. In THAT place! The place I was avoiding because I believed that that darkness was the signal that all was lost and that God had truly abandoned me. I had looked desperately for salvation in all the other places and tried my very hardest, and had come up empty-handed. Not until I found myself in the prison dungeon, with no options left, and no life left, did He show up. It was only there that my prayers got heard, too. There in the place where my heartbreak was big enough to absorb all the implications of the curse that had swallowed me and mine; there where I could see all the roots of the disaster, and feel all the implications, too, did I pray the prayer that fit my problem. It was there that I learned, in fact, that you have to define the problem correctly before the solution can fit. At age 10 I had prayed to be shown the problem, no matter what it took. At age 48 I began to see it.
You have to have a heart large enough to care enough to do what it takes to solve the problem. The curses get activated, in fact, when people cease to care, and that carelessness gets passed down to the children. It is a hard hole to climb out of. Jacob saw the fight for his affection and approval, surely, between his children, but as he had never experienced the same from his father, he didn’t know how to give it to his children. We are hard-wired to do as we are done by, and hurting people hurt people. Jacob’s family blew itself apart, which is a true nuclear explosion. Joseph’s heart had to become large enough to care enough again, but despair has a way of teaching us to care. In that dungeon, Joseph became willing to care enough to administrate salvation to an entire heathen nation because he had despaired of the salvation for his own family, but in the process of saving a nation, he gained the largeness of heart his family needed for him to have to forgive them and save them, too.
Now I am just beginning to make the moves I need to make to put Humpty Dumpty back on the wall of my own family. I cannot avoid the hurt and despair of the disaster. I have to face it, and experience it, and embrace it, too, for in that hole is where I know I will find what got lost, and in that hole I will find the courage to become willing to change my life and do whatever it takes to reach out and gather them back. In the process, perhaps I will also find the answers to a lot of other hurt. Perhaps there is a nation full of famished people waiting for those answers. Once my heart has gotten big enough to care.
WHEN WE’RE READY
We all live at ground level.
We all take the hits that are thrown at us there. Whether by friends,
family, or foes alike.
We all wonder what in the world is going on?
We’ve all said “Where’s God in all this?”
He’s waiting.
John 5 tells of a man lame and languishing in his morbid state for 38 years.
Jesus has waited for just the right day. “Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asks him.
We know the answer as the lame man immediately picked up his mat and walked.
At some point in our lives, we are all asked the same question. Our answers will likely
all differ according to where we are in our journey. But the right day will come.
And we all will be made well . . .
WHEN WE’RE READY
An interesting approach to studying Scripture reminiscent of Karl Olson of Faith at Work and Lyman of Serendipity used this as a method of personalizing the scripture. Joseph was one of the ones I could identify, particularly his coat of many colors. I too could be a pain to others. Thanks, Skip, for awaking memories.
~These things happened to THEM as examples and were written down as warnings for US, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. ~ 1 Corinthians 10.11 (Emphasis mine)
Are we (even) capable of learning? Wow. Are we (no, – am I?) teachable, trainable? Yes, “meek.” Hopefully, I can learn from my mistakes, but am I able to also learn or to receive instruction from the mistakes (or misdeeds) of others?
[Friend], ~ Although the LORD gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your TEACHERS will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them ~ (Isaiah 30.20) Wow. Instruction is everywhere. We are so blessed! Yes, (even) in our (so called) “affliction.”
I’ve been through some “stuff.” And (undoubtedly) so have you. Why is this so?Yes, -it okay to ask why? for this is also “how we learn!” Lol.
Let’s listen once more to the Shepherd-King’s testimony: ~ It is good for me that I have been afflicted.. [Whaaa? Say what?] Why is that, David? My suffering was GOOD for me.. — for it taught me to pay attention to Your decrees ~
(Psalm 119.71)
And boy, oh boy.. the name of the game is what? “PAY ATTENTION!!”
I am thoroughly convinced (and convicted), “the quality of anyone’s life is directly proportional to the “quality” (how well) of listening. ” Listen up!! “SHEMA” O Israel!!
Trauma itself is a very complex emotional state whose effects have physiological and neurological ramifications often creating pathways and thought structures that can become the super highways in our lives. This ability to fully engage with God with man through torah is and has been foundational to my healing and restoration. BTW: while the torah is a primary path, nature, art and many other forums provide a safe way of encountering the things in us that are locked up. 1
In my experience I began discovering the intimacy of God in the fulfillment of the torah….not in keeping every jot and tittle but in the progression of developing intimacy. Jonathan Sacks offered us three Hebraic perspectives of the maturing of intimacy; trust, covenant friendship, and love. I have experienced how these three are developed and continually strengthened in each of the three relational aspects of torah; the written torah, the oral torah, and the living torah (yeshua).
So much here but let me be specific to trauma. Through the written torah, my ability to connect to the treasure of memories that is in God’s relationship with man I became able to experience emotions and my emotional self-centeredness SLOWLY loosened its hold and I could experience difficult emotions in the safety of the biblical past. I became accustomed to rowing backwards with the god of Israel’s past.
Entering into personal covenant friendship now was a place to experience my past and the God of my past whom I had no idea was working in all the events of my life. Like all of us, many I wanted to forget and ignore and some appearing too painful to ever want to return to. However, now I had the safety of experiencing these emotions first in biblical history and now in my own history. No longer rowing backwards looking only at Israel, but growing in understanding that Yeshua is the author and finisher of my faith. Realizing God brought me into a specific family line for generational restoration pretty well ended all my victim mentality but brought up a whole lot of questions that really need to be addressed for trust and friendship to grow. (so many stories lol)
That brought me to desire and commit to be joined to the Lord and coming into relationship with the living torah; where I am learning to love. To love others includes being able to be fully relational and fully emotionally engaged. To be able to stand with others in their traumas and know this can be a very long process of restoring neurological pathways, recreating secure attachment bonds with God and NOT operate out of my old wounding’s takes his strength and courage and a history of relational freedom found only in the fullness of torah. A very special thank you to JB who stood with me in some of the most difficult times of discovery!!!!
There are reasons he orchestrates the traumas of our lives and even of nations that I don’t know but can share of the beauty and strength of genuine empathy and compassion. Trauma is a big deal to God and maybe one of the greatest places of trust he can share.
1.Sister Wendy has a particularly succinct perspective on this in art in session 5 of her interview with Bill Moyers on youtube…”Sister Wendy In Conversation Part 5″
Skip, one sentence the Lord had you write today went into the script and narrative God has had me going through. And, Joseph is one He has aligned me with. How God used that sentence this morning to release some stuff in me, you’ll never know. Thank you for being obedient to what He has called you to do, and, to write as He has led you to write. Many blessings.
“He makes no attempt to communicate with his father.” Probably Yosev didn’t know how to as he was a young lad in Egypt, and imprisoned, for a long while-
From BibleTimeline-
He was 17 when he was sold into Egypt
He was 30 when he was made overseer
He was 39 when his brothers first came to Egypt (second year of the famine, or nine years after being made overseer)
He was probably 41 or so when the brothers came a second time and Jacob comes to Egypt –
Until he heard from his brothers that they thought/presumed he was dead.
Yosev was without doubt traumatized that his brothers would throw him into the dry well, and then have him sold as a SLAVE! How devastated he must have been. Perhaps he was relying on his dreams to be somehow fulfilled. Perhaps, he had the assurance of his Elohim, and of the Elohim of his forefathers that He will see him through it all.
I was in a sort of circumstances as Yosev was in a tiny way. My dad passed away when I was at a very age, and was brought up by my mom’s elder sister in her household; I was pretty devastated too, separated from my younger brother, and with a mother who literally loathed and cursed me to death. My uncle despised me, made me do all the house chores. Somehow, I felt a Presence around me that was so comforting I could take any punishment.
Perhaps that was how Yosev felt. YHWH was working in my life, and I didn’t know it, for He was not known to me then. Yosev was abiding upon His time.
HIS invisible hand is always upon us! Amein!
Gets me thinking of the incident when Peter tried to walk on the water…
If we believe everything is possible, including personal convictions of what was intended to be written by the author of the Bible.
It is like the invitation to walk on the waters / Eat of Yeshua’s flesh and drink of His blood… The invitation is simple, we often accept it but then the execution is the problem and not because we do not understand it but because we justify it our way…
I believe Joseph was at peace with what happened to him it happened throughout the biblical age… Joseph knew his father loved him more than his brothers, after all his father even reprimanded him incorrectly when Jacob did not know what was God’s intent.
Think of how Peter must have felt, Come mate you can, just walk… Why did you have so little faith.
God, had called Joseph before he was sold, Joseph may just not have understood at the time that this is how God works – Skip phrased it Tough Love.
The reality of this tough love is that all these other human thoughts, ideas and assumptions no longer exist think of the other records before and after Joseph. No-one doubted or regretted or blamed others for the incident it was as if their memories were wiped clean until they understood they were servants of the living God then they used their calling to explain to others how God worked… Is this not rather the lesson I should learn from the biblical records?
I am no Joseph, or Peter, or Paul maybe I am but the man waiting to be called seated next to the bath for 38 years. Blaming others, every time the angel stirred the water someone got in before me…
Stand up, take up your bed (nullify your conviction) and do…
The lesson, when we are called their is no regret or doubt just a desire to be healed or live a life that satisfies God’s purpose.
Remember Skip’s blog on being the individual changing the world without proclaiming it… That is how Joseph was called and how we are called. Not like Peter requesting to be able to be like Yeshua, but rather being submissive to the calling and living it out as it unfolds for use…
Skip how did you say the greeting changed, no longer Shalom but rather greet with…
Maybe rather greet: No longer may peace be with you, but rather, today YHVH has anointed you go and be the peace / salvation for those YHVH is calling unto Yeshua / Salvation.
Just an alternative view… As I understand the lesson from Joseph.