Until the Time

 Psalms 105:15-21

"Touch not these chosen ones of mine," he warned, "and do not hurt my prophets."  He called for a famine on the land of Canaan, cutting off its food supply.  Then he sent Joseph as a slave to Egypt to save his people from starvation.  There in prison they hurt his feet with fetters and placed his neck in an iron collar until God's time finally came-- how God tested his patience!  Then the king sent for him and set him free.  He was put in charge of all the king's possessions.  (TLB)

Leadership, we all want its glory, but few can walk its path.  Defining leadership is a difficult task in itself.  Some say it is, “following out front.”  Others say it is simply demonstrating how to live and work.  For me, leadership is genuinely following Christ.  The more I am like Christ, the greater leader I may become.  It is not how I lead, it is how I live.  Living in His will is a beacon for many who are searching for Him.

Leaders of God march to the beat of an internal drummer.  The road of their parade winds as unpredictably as the wind of His Spirit’s guidance.  Joseph, an astonishing young man of God, saw the end of the story but the Lord graciously hid the middle chapters.  Yet, it is the part between the vision and its fulfillment where most of us live out our life – in faith and hope. 

In the above verses, I am taken aback when David says that Joseph was sent (by God) as a slave to Egypt to become a savior of His people from starvation.  Let me get this straight, Joseph is given a promise through glorious vision.  Then the steps of this righteous man are revealed to him.  Each new step to leadership was harder than the previous one AND they are taking him in the wrong direction, into the camp of the enemy.  God's path can be very strange.  Joseph is honored by divine revelation. And his day by day walk takes him into mockery, abuse, rejection, beatings, sold into slavery, slave labor, false accusations of sexual abuse, imprisonment, being forgotten, and then to fetters and neck irons.  The way of God is certainly mysterious and painful at times. 

I like the next phrase in the King James version of this passage.  Joseph was there, “until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him.”  There is a time for God’s word of release to come to you.  There is an appointed time for freedom.  It is never soon enough.  If you have seen God’s vision by divine revelation, but you are daily walking on a road that leads in the opposite direction, you are most likely becoming a leader for His Kingdom.  You heard me right.  You are most likely on the road to becoming just what He wanted you to be. 

Now, how many want to be leaders?  -  raise your hands.   ……. Hmmm. How many are willing to follow the Lord at any cost – to go where He wants you to go and say what He wants you to say?  Perhaps this all gives new meaning to taking up your cross and following Him.  Creature comfort is not the first concern of mighty men and women of God, -  Jesus is.

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