Genesis 40:23
“Yet did not the chief butler remember Joseph, but forgat him.”
Have you ever felt that your life is constantly on the bad end of lies? What I mean by this statement is that you are the one who is lied about and is considered the bad guy. This is certainly a helpless feeling, and can also drive a person to try to get revenge.
Nobody epitomizes this better than Joseph. Joseph’s early life seems to be one that was surrounded by deceit. His father was a master of deceit, and it is very obvious that Joseph’s brothers learned it from him. Then, Joseph’s brothers practiced their deceit on him and sold him into slavery. When Joseph must have thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. His master’s wife lied about him trying to force himself upon her which resulted in his imprisonment. Finally, while in prison the inmates whom he helped promised to speak a good word to Pharaoh, and they did not. Somehow, through about thirty years of deceit that surrounded Joseph, he came through life with a good attitude and did not let the deceit destroy him.
There are going to be times in your life when you are going to be the recipient of deceit. When that happens, what you do with it will determine what your attitude is like and what God can do with you. There were four definite things Joseph did that helped him deal with deceit in a good way.
First, Joseph kept doing right. It would have been easy to give up and say, “What’s the use?”, but he didn’t do that. He kept on doing right because he was not going to allow the bad character of others to affect his. When you are the recipient of deceit, you must keep doing right. Don’t lower yourself to the character level of those who are deceitful. Remember, God is watching and will reward both you and the deceitful ones. Don’t reward deceit with deceit, instead keep doing right.
Second, Joseph kept helping people. This is truly amazing when you consider how many people were deceitful towards him. You cannot adopt the attitude that everyone is deceitful so you are not going to help anyone. When you are the recipient of deceit, don’t allow it to cause you to lose your belief in the goodness of people. Keep helping people, for there are plenty of good people whom you can help, and your action to help is what will get you through the damages of deceit.
Third, Joseph saw the whole picture. This is the part that truly amazes me about Joseph. He understood there was a bigger picture than the immediate, and that is what kept him going. When you are the recipient of deceit, don’t forget to look at the bigger picture. You are only living in a small time frame of your life, and you must pull yourself back to see the whole picture and realize that God is in control. You must realize that God is using this deceit for some good. You may not be able to see the good, but it will come if you look at the whole picture and realize that God is in control.
Finally, Joseph didn’t give up. He kept going and believed that this part of his life would end, and it did. Whatever you do, you must keep going when you are the recipient of deceit. There are many people who are still depending upon you to keep going. Joseph didn’t understand how many people were truly depending upon him, but there were thousands of people who would have died had he given up. You don’t know what your future may be and that is why you must not give up. God is going to use you if you will keep a good attitude through the deceit and continue to do what is right. Don’t let the helpless feeling that deceit has dropped upon you cause you to quit. Just keep on going realizing that it is all part of a bigger picture of God’s plan to use you.