Your enemies are some of your greatest propellers in life. Your haters may think they are destroying your destiny, but their actions are part of God’s plan to elevate you and bring you to your destination. It is not a palatable experience, but you need them sometimes to stimulate you for more. Just as the haters of Jesus helped him to accomplish the preordained mission of Calvary, that is the same way the haters of Joseph helped him reach Egypt. Out of hate, Judah roped his other brothers into the decision to sell Joseph and pretend that he was killed by a wild animal.
What happened to Joseph exemplifies what the Bible says about when a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes his enemies be at peace with him. Joseph is the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac. But the merchantmen that bought him into slavery were Ishmeelites (that is, the children of Ishmael), who were enemies of Isaac. However, they did not kill him but sold him to Potiphar, the captain of Pharoah’s guard. And the route from Dothan to Egypt is a route that touched all the miles Joseph’s family had travelled, from Abraham to his late mother, Rachel. So, at the hand of his enemies, Joseph familiarised himself with his family heritage and God’s walk with them.
If there are no problems, you will lack strength. If there were no challenges, some of us would be too comfortable. If difficulties never arise, some of us will shrink, die and waste our potential. “If you fail in the day of adversity, your strength is too small” because adversity helps to test your strength and build more if you are deficient.
The tares were allowed to grow with the wheat because the wheat needed to learn to survive amid tares(Matthew 13:24-30). Your tares are necessary because you will gain strength and experience with that. You will learn to trust God. You will learn to face your enemies and defeat them. Joseph would encounter enemies in Egypt because not all the Egyptians would love him. So, God used his hating brothers to train him to survive amidst angry faces and voices.
Reflection: There are enemies you cannot pray away; God allows them to be there for a purpose – build and propel you to the throne. Satan’s works serve a purpose in your life as God did to Job. Jesus allowed Satan to tempt Peter to show Peter that he was still a man and should have the basis of his faith in God and not in his strength.
Seeing that you have understood that the dream came from God and for God’s purpose, you are relaxed in Him, who can make tables for you in the presence, not absence, of your enemies (Psalm 23:1-5). Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass; it is about learning to dance in the rain. Whatever God allows, if God allows it, is okay. For His thoughts towards us are thoughts of good, not of evil, to bring us to our expected end.
