A Father to Pharaoh
June 19, 2022
James Tissot French painter
FATHER’S DAY
“And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence… So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.” – Genesis 45:3,8
Fathers, you are making history daily.
Joseph, who had in Egypt become a father to the king, was facing the very men who had snatched him from his father’s house and sold him into slavery. Because they were his father’s sons, these men who had sinned against him so deviously, were still his brothers. More than that, Joseph knew that they had been instrumental in God’s plan for his life in Egypt. They were unwitting agents of God’s deeper and more eternal purposes in preparing His people for His purpose of redemption through the Messiah.
Nothing can thwart God’s plan.
But through years of slavery, Joseph, who adapted and thrived in every new situation, had not forgotten his father. It was his father who had loved him, encouraged him, provided the earliest example of integrity to him, and had taught him the lessons of life. But his father had not always been such a man.
Joseph had excelled in character that had come to Jacob later in life. He had not, as a young man been the man his son was. He had dealt treacherously with his own brother and the lack of integrity in his early life had, no doubt, helped to shape the character of his older sons.
But Joseph was raised by Israel, the man Jacob had become through an encounter with God and his character was shaped by a different man than the one who had stolen his brother’s birthright and dealt deceptively with his own father. As fathers, our own character will help to shape that of our sons and will impact history.