The story of Joseph reaches it’s conclusion. His brothers return to Egypt needing more food as the famine has worsened.
Even after spending time with him, still they do not recognise him. When he does eventually let them know who he is, they are understandably dumbstruck.
He tells them that although he has been through so many hardships in his life, it has all been in God’s plan for his life. I’m sure that when he was in the bottom of the well, being chased by Potiphar’s wife and then in jail for a few years, he must have wondered on many occasions what God’s plan was.
The story also has the universal theme of redemption. Joseph’s brothers must have had what they had done to Joseph hanging over them year after year, an invisible weight round their necks. Then when they find out that he is alive and he forgives them as well, they must have felt full of joy and amazement at how God has directed their lives.
It is the same for us now. God’s plans are rarely short term, they are long term plans which we may not understand until a point in our lives when we can look back and see how situations we go through mould us and shape us into the people that God wants us to be.
peterjfield 