1. Joseph's conduct at this period of his life was the first step towards the greatness that awaited him. It showed the healthiness and wholesomeness of his nature that he passed through the galling and trying experiences of his humiliation unhurt. He was not soured towards men. He did not grow morbid, sullen, or disheartened. Though a slave, he accepted his position with cheerfulness, and entered heartily into his new life, doing his duties so well that he soon became overseer in his master's house. He did not grieve over his wrongs, or exhaust himself in self-pity-one of the most miserable and unmanly of emotions. He did not burn out the love of his heart in vindictive and resentful feelings. He did not brood over his wrongs. He looked forward and not back, out and not in. The darkness about Joseph's life was not allowed to enter his heart. This was one of the great secrets of his victorious living. The light within him continued to burn pure and clear. With hatred all about him, he kept love in his heart. Enduring injuries, wrongs, and injustice, his spirit was forgiving. With a thousand things that tended to discourage and dishearten him, to break his spirit, he refused to be discouraged. Because other men lived unworthily was but a stronger reason why he should live worthily. Because he was treated cruelly and wickedly was fresh reason why he should give to others about him the best service of love and unselfishness. That his condition was hard was to him a new motive for living heroically and nobly. So we find the spirit of Joseph unbroken under all that was galling and crushing in his circumstances.
Sometimes all that we can do is to stand still and bear, and go on bearing as best we can, sure that it all comes from God's hand and so must be good for us-good for the whole of His creatures, somehow, that we should bear it all for the sake of the Lord, who bore the cross and shame, and the weight of our sins.1 [Note: Life of W. E. Collins, Bishop of Gibraltar, 51.]
2. We read that Joseph bore himself so genially, and did his work so well, and was so capable, so true, so trustworthy, that Potiphar left all he had in his hand; “he knew not aught that was with him, save the bread which he did eat.” Joseph would never have won such a success if he had spent his time in vain regrets or in vindictive feelings. We should learn the lesson, and it is worth learning-it is life's highest and best lesson. It is the victory of the faith in Christ which overcometh the world.
If he was to be a slave, Joseph was determined he would be the best of slaves, and what he was required to do he would do with his might and with his heart. This is a most important consideration, and it may, perhaps, help to explain why similar trials have had such different results in different persons. One has been bemoaning that it is not with him as it used to be, while the other has discovered that some talents have been still left him, and he has set to work with these. One has been saying, “If I had only the resources which I once possessed I could do something; but now they have gone, I am helpless.” But the other has been soliloquizing thus: “If I can do nothing else I can at least do this, little as it is; and if I put it into the hand of Christ, He can make it great”; and so we account for the unhappiness and uselessness of the one, and for the happiness and usefulness of the other. Nor will it do to say that this difference is a mere thing of temperament. It is a thing of character. The one acts in faith, recognizing God's hand in his affliction; the other acts in unbelief, seeing nothing but his own calamity, and that only increases his affliction. So we come to this: keep fast hold of God's hand in your captivity, and do your best in that which is open to you. That will ultimately bring you out of it; but if you lose that you will lose everything.1 [Note: W. M. Taylor, Joseph, the Prime Minister, 47.]
I have been led in a way that I knew not. Loving-kindness has followed me all the days of my life. I can see the good hand of God in many of the most bewildering and painful events of my history; and just as, when the sun has set, the stars come out in their placid beauty, and “darkness shows us worlds of light we never saw by day,” so, in the darkness of depression, public slander, and personal suffering, I have learnt more lessons for good, and been more braced up for earnest work, than by ought or all besides.2 [Note: W. Morley Punshon, in Life by F. W. Macdonald, 84.]
How much nobler is Jacob's confession of dependence, and his recognition of the guiding hand of God, than the modern poet's boast:-
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbow'd.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.1 [Note: W. E. Henley.]
