Joseph feeds his family while also serving his Pharaoh, tightening the economic grip on a starving population. He cannot make those two things fit neatly together. He doesn’t try.
“So Joseph settled his father and his brothers in Egypt and gave them property in the best part of the land, the district of Rameses, as Pharaoh directed. 12 Joseph also provided his father and his brothers and all his father’s household with food, according to the number of their children. 13 There was no food, however, in the whole region because the famine was severe; both Egypt and Canaan wasted away because of the famine. 14 Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in Egypt and Canaan in payment for the grain they were buying, and he brought it to Pharaoh’s palace.” (Genesis 47 v 11-14)
How can the same hands that supply provisions for his family be involved in making life even harder for the population? The two realities sit side by side. Abundance in one hand and desperation in the other.
He cannot save everyone. He cannot feed his family, serve his Pharaoh, and do it tension-free.
Most of us live in the complicated middle, too, where we struggle to please everyone at once. But while Joseph is preserving lives, he is also strengthening Pharaoh’s economic control. He is the man caught in the middle.
Both realities sit side by side; that is where Joseph actually lives.
Most of us live there too. We are pulled between people whose needs don’t always align, serving institutions while trying to protect those we love. Joseph doesn’t resolve the tension. To carry two things at once and keep going may be a fresh variety of faithfulness, and beneath it all, God’s plan moves forward.
I am posting this link for a few weeks to ask you to contribute to a cause that is so important and to spur me up a hill in June!
Missions Paul 