Trusting Him in the Dungeon



9 Then the chief cupbearer said to Pharaoh, “Today I am reminded of my shortcomings. 10 Pharaoh was once angry with his servants, and he imprisoned me and the chief baker in the house of the captain of the guard. 11 Each of us had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own. 12 Now a young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. We told him our dreams, and he interpreted them for us, giving each man the interpretation of his dream. 13 And things turned out exactly as he interpreted them to us: I was restored to my position, and the other man was impaled.”

14 So Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and he was quickly brought from the dungeon. When he had shaved and changed his clothes, he came before Pharaoh. Genesis 41:9-14

At long last, the cupbearer remembered Joseph. God was disciplining Joseph for a greater work while he was rotting away in the dungeon. He was refining him as a refiner refines gold under very harsh conditions. We look at the external and see that Joseph led a cruel and bare existence in prison, but God knew how much Joseph could cope before cracking under so much pressure.

God’s discipline is like that. It’s hard to see when you’re in the midst of it, but after you’re out and have had time to process it, it dawns on you that God was working and it wasn’t all in vain. You don’t like it. In fact, nobody likes it.

Nobody really likes the process of learning a new skill, but when you’re proficient at it, you wonder why it took you so long.

How long had Joseph been in the dungeon? How long did it take Him to orchestrate events and situations in Pharoah’s household before Joseph could be released? Nobody knows. Joseph benefited from that refinement.

Perhaps someone reading this is going through that painful discipline right now. How long will it last? Nobody really knows but God is working on you.

He wants you –He wants US – to trust Him.

He wants us to lay down burdens we were never meant to carry. Like a child jumping into the arms of her father, He wants us to trust Him just like that, having full confidence that the Father will be there when we jump.


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