Joseph: God Is with You in the Waiting • Genesis 39-41

AI was not used to generate this post.

How are you at waiting for anything? Waiting is rarely a pleasant experience for us. But we make ourselves do it daily in various situations (doctor’s offices, traffic, checkout lanes). Our focus is usually not on the waiting itself, but on the end result of the waiting. The same is true regarding our faith walk with God. In the last article, we began looking at Joseph’s life and how he had to persevere in the pit of rejection and loss. He learned that God was with him in every pit. He is with us too. This is post #4 in the Old Testament Men blog series. In this post, we will look at how God is with you in the waiting as well. Once again, Joseph’s life is our example.

Listen to this post as a similar podcast from our Profiles of Perseverance Bible Study covering the lives of Joseph, David, Elijah, and Nehemiah.

Two Choices in the Waiting

Waiting for an undetermined period of time for an unknown result can start a lot of mind games. One of the most damaging is dwelling on fantasies of the future rather than accepting present reality and starting there. What do I mean by that?

You have two choices of living during this time of waiting¹:

1. Subjective living is when you make decisions according to feelings and desires apart from a consideration of what is true and right.
2. Objective living is when you act by faith according to what is true and right according to God’s Word, allowing your feelings to assume their proper place as responders.

We see in Joseph’s life that he chose objective living.

Joseph’s Two Choices

In Genesis chapter 39, Joseph was falsely accused and confined to prison. So many wrongful things had been done to that young man! Yet, he continued to choose to do what was right before God. We might ask ourselves, “What in Joseph’s life prepared him to persevere like that?”

Joseph must have “caught” the truth from his father that God is the one true God and that choosing to obey Him is the best way to live. He learned that God would answer you in your day of distress and that He will be with you wherever you go. Joseph had faith. In prison, that was all he had left. Everything else that he may have depended upon had been stripped away.

At this point in his life Joseph was left with two choices: 1) Go through the situation on his own or 2) By faith, go through it with God. God always responds to people of faith. Joseph was sent to the place where the king’s prisoners were kept, so it wasn’t the worst. Unexpectedly, prison was once again God’s rescue of Joseph from a bad situation.

And God was with him there. God showed him kindness there. And God granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.

Joseph chose to persevere there and function well there. In the prison. In the confinement. Not in a place of his choosing, but it was where he found himself to be. That is where Joseph needed to trust God and function well. It was a place not only of rescue from the bad situation but also a place of maturation for Joseph’s future. A place of waiting. And God was in the waiting too.

God Is in the Waiting

Several years ago, I heard a song that changed my perspective on waiting. It is called “In the Waiting” by Shannon Wexelberg. In the song, she cries out to God about having to wait, then she realizes something. Read her words addressed to God,

You are in the waiting in that moment of my life, when my faith and hope collide. My heart’s anticipating just how and when You’ll move. Oh, that’s when You prove You are in the waiting too” (“In the Waiting” by Shannon Wexelberg)

God is in the waiting, too, right along with you. He needed to wait until the right conditions were in place before He could move Jacob and clan to Egypt. That took ~22 years of waiting on God’s part. Think about the births of John the Baptist and Jesus. God’s plan for the redemption of mankind was finally launched. God had been working in the background for 400 years until those births came about. But God had to wait for those babies to grow up into men. That took almost thirty more years of waiting on His part.

Consider what Jesus experienced. He had to wait for more than ten years after He became a man for the timing to be ripe, to be perfect, to begin His ministry. During that waiting time, Jesus worked alongside His father in the family business. Like Joseph, He functioned well. Jesus understands how you feel when you are “in the waiting.”

Waiting upon the Lord

So often, the psalms speak of waiting upon the Lord. Here are some examples:

Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. (Psalm 27:14)

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. (Psalm 37:7)

Patiently wait for God alone, my soul! For he is the one who gives me hope. (Psalm 62:5 NET)

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. (Psalm 130:5–6)

The Hebrew word that is most commonly used to wait upon the Lord is a word that means to hope and expect. It also means to bind together as in tying together loose ends.

Waiting is rarely a pleasant experience for us. But we make ourselves do it daily in various situations (doctor’s offices, traffic, checkout lanes). Right? Our focus is usually not on the waiting itself, but on the end result of the waiting. And waiting binds us together with the Lord. How?

Waiting Binds You Together with the Lord

Watch expectantly

Psalm 27:14 says that waiting on the Lord will make you stronger. Whether you desire to be stronger or not, that doesn’t make the pain go away. Yet, waiting teaches you about God and His timing.

The prophet Micah said this,

I will watch expectantly for the Lord. (Micah 7:7)

While waiting for the Lord, you are to watch expectantly. Tune your ear to how God is working. Look for evidence of His working. That binds you together with Him.

Be available in prayer

Waiting on the Lord also makes you available to talk with Him in prayer. When you seek God for a solution in your life, those times of waiting will strengthen your relationship with Him as you learn to rely on His timing and trust in His goodness. That binds you together with Him.

Keep moving forward

But waiting does not mean to just do nothing. While trusting Him, you continue moving forward, functioning well in life just like Joseph did.

Did Joseph get discouraged waiting? Probably. Joseph was a normal human being. But in spite of the long thirteen-year wait for his release from bondage, Joseph refused to allow discouragement to imprison his heart and make him lose hope. He used his God-given gifts to actively serve others. He trusted God to help him interpret the dreams of his fellow prisoners and Pharaoh.

Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” “I cannot do it,” Joseph replied to Pharaoh, “but God will give Pharaoh the answer he desires.” … Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has made all this known to you, there is no one so discerning and wise as you. You shall be in charge of my palace, and all my people are to submit to your orders. Only with respect to the throne will I be greater than you.” (Genesis 41:15-16, 39-40)

Joseph was God-conscious in his mind and glorified God with his words and actions—there in his bondage, there while waiting, and there when given the opportunity for freedom.

Read the biblical truth about dreams in this article, “Daniel 1-8 • Trusting God with Opposition and Dreams.”

Waiting doesn’t just bind us together with God but also prepares us for what is next.

Waiting Prepares Us for What’s Next

What Joseph learned

Think about what Joseph learned during the long period of darkness (thirteen years) that prepared him for the incredible “dawn” he would experience as Pharaoh’s go-to guy. Joseph…

• learned that it pays to have a good reputation. He became more efficient at managing people and supplies.
• trusted God more and recognized God’s presence with him.
• functioned well in the midst of loneliness, opposition, temptation, restriction, disappointment, success, and opportunity.

Waiting is the norm

Joseph had to wait patiently for God to act. Remember that he did not know the future. We also must wait for God’s “always perfect” timing in answer to our prayers. Is this a problem for you? Have you become discouraged (or been discouraged in the past) from having to wait?

I hate to tell you this but waiting, especially waiting upon the Lord, is the norm rather than the exception in life. So you and I had better learn how to deal with it and still grow as we go through it.

If you consider that God is in the waiting with you and that waiting binds you together with Him, does this change your perspective of waiting? I didn’t say change your enjoyment of it. I said your perspective.

God Is with You in the Waiting

Can you see how waiting is good for you? It could be God rescuing you from a bad situation. Or it might be God preparing you for a specific task that will impact many people. God is no doubt teaching you how to trust Him and rely on Him more than on yourself. And God is in that waiting too. That should give you hope.

Are You Ready for Perseverance in Your Life?

As the Bible promises,

For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. (Romans 15:4 NASB)

We can have hope because we have God with us. So, remember our lane markers for the race.

1. Choose to persevere through every challenge.
2. Count on God’s promise to give you hope.
3. Let that hope sustain you through the rough-and-tumble of life.
4. Celebrate the joyful reward.

In the next post, we will discuss what it means when we say that God works it out for our good.

Let Jesus satisfy your heart with hope as you persevere through everyday life.

All of the above information is covered in the Profiles of Perseverance Bible Studycovering the lives of Joseph, David, Elijah, and Nehemiah.

¹ Adapted from the sermon “Meeting Long-Term Trouble with Faith,” Tim Stevenson, June 19, 2005.

Related Resources:

• Old Testament Men blog series
• Trust God’s Goodness in Addressing Your Pain
• Daniel 1-8 • Trusting God with Opposition and Dreams
• God Works in the Background of Life
• Psalm 91 • Rest in the Shadow of the Almighty
• The Call to Dependent Living
• Confidence in God Encourages Dependence on Him
• Perspective on Life in the Waiting

AI was not used to generate this post.