July 1, 2017

The Joseph Journey

Hebrews 11:22 (MSG)
2 By an act of faith, Joseph, while dying, prophesied the exodus of Israel, and made arrangements for his own burial.

Each of us has a journey. Some journeys may be like Daniel in the lion’s den, others like Paul with a radical revealing and yet others like the Apostles Peter or John where you are gun hoe to sign up for God’s calling and find it wasn’t exactly what you thought it would be like.

Throughout my journey many people have thought my journey was much like Job where everything was taken away and suffered health and financial issues, had friends turn their backs on you and even had some people try to convince you that God’s promises may be misunderstood and that you should just give up and move on. Maybe you feel the same way, but the truth is throughout the journey, although the facts of what I have experience over mostly the past 10 years resembles Job, God has shown me that my journey resembles more of Joseph.

Just like Joseph, God has revealed many dreams, visions and promises to me. Some of those things consisted of my ex-wife’s past before I even met her, promises of my children before they were even born, things that have yet to have taken place and other things that have dual meanings to them. In the process of sharing some of these dreams I have been attacked, ignored and persecuted or scrutinized for what promises God has in store.

Here is just one promise and dream I had to give you an example of what I mean.

In July of 2004 my family and I moved to a town just outside of Daytona Beach, Florida. We had a beautiful house on the 16th green of a golf course, but moved to an area where we did not know anyone and were unfamiliar with the area. About 3 weeks of being there we heard that there was a hurricane scheduled to hit the area. Central Florida had not had a hurricane hit the area in over 100 years and what was to come had never happened in Central Florida.

About a few days before the storm hit I could not sleep. My kids were freaked out as they thought the ‘Hamburger King’ was coming to rain down on us. In my restlessness I sat out in the Living Room where I passed out at 3 AM in the recliner and saw three tornadoes bouncing around on the golf course trying to get into our yard and subdivision. They were dancing around like a pinball game but could not come in due to what looked like an invisible dome that covered our house and the houses of our neighbors.
When the storm hit it took out our power for about 4 days and even longer for our neighbors. The sound was like a freight train blowing through for several hours. Our kids camped out in the closet that night when Hurricane Charlie blew through as my wife and I did not sleep much. When I got up in the morning, to my surprise I saw that not a single house in the subdivision had damage to it but the entrances from all four sides were blocked by either flooding or downed trees that we all worked together to clear.  As I looked on the golf course from both my yard and the yards of other neighbors we saw downed trees that had fallen onto the golf course and not on our yards.  Later that day we found out that a tornado had torn through the town, came down the golf course and jumped over our subdivision to another area before dissipating.

At the time I did not think that much about it until the hurricane season ended that year. It turned out that season we were hit with three separate hurricanes bringing different effects to the area but preserving our home.

The strange thing was when we lost our house in 2008 we did more preparation then we did four years prior. Even with the preparation it was not enough to save our house from being damaged by Tropical Storm Fey. At the time it was extremely frustrating to deal with as my business took a major hit just prior to the storm due to the down turn of the market. We ended up going through bankruptcy and the only thing we still had was our family and our house, but even both of those things were to come to an end within a year.

In the midst of the trial I can say that I still saw God’s hand in the process. The Red Cross moved in to help the residents of the area with supplies even before the insurance companies or FEMA made their way out to the area. Just that simple gesture of help from the Red Cross showed that God shows up in the midst of a hellish situation.

When I faced my divorce it was a whole different story of God showing up. Just like Joseph I have found myself in a hole (financially, mentally and health) in a metaphoric way. I have found myself being sold out, lied about, and imprisoned (again in a metaphorically). When I have been imprisoned I have called out asking to not be forgotten and still having dreams, yet in my anger and frustration watching God reveal more of His grace and things yet to come.  In the struggle I have seen God’s blessings and in those drought times I have experienced His provision.

Since God has revealed my Joseph Journey a few years ago I cannot help but think about all of the emotions Joseph himself had to have experienced. I am sure he dealt with anger, betrayal, hurt, loneliness, joy, sorrow, promise and blessing. The crazy thing is throughout his years of the highs and lows, plight and blessing he secretly held onto two promises God revealed in the process. The first was God would restore his family. He didn’t know what that looked like but in the process of expectation he kept moving forward on where God was calling him at the time. When it did happen, he was overwhelmed with emotion yet again and wanted to test his siblings to see if they had gone on a journey of transformation like he did and have a change of heart. He knew that it was not good enough to just pick up where they left off many years prior, rather he wanted to see that God had moved in a mighty way to bring repentance and healing in order to bring a better understanding and bond for the future of their relationship.

The second thing he held fast to was God delivering him from the past of the place where his plight took place. At the beginning of this journal I shared a verse about the promise of Joseph’s body being taken out of Egypt and reburied in the Promise Land. Too often we ask God in our journey to deliver us out of our hard times or otherwise known as ‘Our Egypt,’ but we easily forget about it when we experience our blessing or reconciliation.

In the movie “The Shack,” Mack has an encounter with God the Father, Son & Holy Spirit. As a result of being consumed by the injustice of the murder of his daughter he plans to leave the presence of God, but before he does Seri (the one who represents the Holy Spirit) tells him the direction to get out but asks him for some help in the garden. She gives him a hoe and takes a sickle to cut down some overgrowth. As they are working and talking she asks him what his thoughts are of the garden. He says ‘It is beautiful but wild.’ She agrees but a short time later they come onto a poisonous root that she tells him that the poison will kill him if he touches it but mixed with the nectar of a given flower it has supernatural healing powers. She continues on to reveal to him that the garden they are in is his soul.

You see it is very easy to get lost in the process of the journey and be consumed by the injustice along the way. If we allow the overgrowth it can bring up the poison, but if we take the promise and mix it with the pain we can come up with the supernatural healing meant for others in order to bring reconciliation.

When I have reflected on this promise and journey of Joseph, I cannot help but understand that maybe the process took so long simply because God needed to remove the feelings of injustice and anger and judgment from the heart of Joseph. It is easy to see the story of Joseph and the promises that took place but it is a different thing when you are the one living the process out day in and day out, year after year.

In the past 8 to 10 years I can say that my emotions have been all over the board, but one thing remains the same; keeping my eyes on God’s promises. The two prayers I have been asking God repeatedly have been for reconciliation of my family and the deliverance out of my Egypt.  I don’t know when either will happen, but I do trust God enough to know that His word remains true.

Maybe you are struggling with something that you would consider your Joseph Journey. It could be your health or maybe financial or relational issues, and you feel stuck and seeing no resolve. Take a look at the injustice, seek the promise and try to find a way the take something that is toxic and turn it into a blessing for others and see what God is going to do. It may be that God is preparing you for something epic before He restores that which was lost!

CAL