Here and Now

“So the chief of the butlers told Joseph his dream…Joseph told him, ‘This is its interpretation.’” Genesis 40:9, 12a

Many very sincere Christians get frustrated because they want to do something significant for God, but feel their circumstances prevent it. Some may think their lack of schooling keeps them from being taken seriously when they talk about Christ, or maybe others imagined hosting Bible studies that grew into the hundreds, only to have just two or three friends gathering around their kitchen table.

Maybe we feel we have grown out of touch with the world around us. We may not know our neighbors well, may have recently retired and don’t have work acquaintances, or generally feel inadequate to have much effect for God at all.

This can be especially difficult for someone who may have had some “success” in ministry at some point. Perhaps we have dreamed much bigger than our current situation, and we simply can’t make the two fit. Think about Joseph. He dreamed that the “sun, moon and eleven stars” bowed down to him, and how he is in an Egyptian jail through no fault of his own.

How will his dreams ever be fulfilled? How can he do anything great for God? Fortunate for him, though the charges of attempting to seduce his boss’s wife were false, he still had his life. Adultery carried a death sentence in those days. Perhaps Potiphar smelled a rat, and gave Joseph the benefit of the doubt.

Nonetheless, the boy is still in jail, a far cry from having the celestial luminaries bow before him! But we never sense any bitterness as we read Joseph’s story, and more than once it says that “the Lord was with him.” Even in prison Joseph rose through the ranks. The warden was kindly disposed toward him and put Joseph in charge of all the convicts.

But let’s be honest; there is only so far you can advance as a prisoner. There just aren’t many positions for CEOs of ancient Egyptian jails. But it didn’t seem to faze Joseph as he went about simply trying to please God in the place he happened to be at the moment.

We can feel imprisoned by circumstances, shackled by financial struggles or discouraged because we haven’t achieved what we had hoped to in life. But there is always someone like the butler who needs a word from God. That’s what I take away from this slice of Joseph’s story.

I have never pastored a church that averaged over 100 in attendance. I have never pastored in a town of greater than 5,000 people. But there were plenty of “butlers” in those little churches and towns that needed to hear someone tell them that God knew about their life, that He cared about their situation, just as Joseph did for the butler.

Most of us know the rest of the story, how Joseph was enabled to interpret Pharaoh’s dream and was promoted to second in all of Egypt. This allowed God to move Jacob’s family, the ancestors of the nation of Israel, into Egypt to escape the famine that was coming. God preserved the people through whom the Messiah and Savior Jesus would come. All of this because Joseph was faithful when it seemed his dream might never be fulfilled.

Of course, there can only be “one” Joseph in a story like this; only “one” who rises to the top to become second in Egypt. Our lesson is to accomplish God’s will right now where we are, no matter if He uses us in high profile ways to influence myriads for Him, or if we are the simple instrument of His grace to a lonely resident of a nursing home. Either way, we should never consider ourselves useless for God, no matter where we are.

There are people who can recognize God’s work in the lives of those who follow Jesus. Be ready for them. Look around for those who need someone to remind them that God knows where they are and has a personal interest in their life. We may be surprised that our influence extends wider than we assumed.