Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “True Greatness”
Our Bible verse for today: “The Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man.” Genesis 39:2 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Greatness is forged in the fires of adversity.”
A common characteristic which seems to be shared by all great men and women of God is that they have had to endure and persevere through times of great difficulty and adversity. It was in those times of trial and struggle that God forged the character traits in them that ultimately lead to their greatness.
If you’ve ever read the biographies of people like Abraham Lincoln, Lottie Moon, Hudson Taylor, Teddy Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Winston Churchill, or Joni Erickson Tada, then you know what tremendous adversities they dealt with in their personal lives and how those trials created in them the character traits that ultimately made them the great public figures they ended up being. It’s a common story.
That’s why I love the story of Joseph, found in Genesis chapters 37-50. Favored by his father but hated by his brothers; ripped from his home and sold into slavery in Egypt as a teenager; falsely accused of attempted rape and thrown into a miserable prison; thirteen long years of trials and tribulations and mistreatment in a foreign land; but through it all Joseph honored God with his integrity and God in turn “was with Joseph”. It’s a term Moses used several times over the course of telling Joseph’s story and it was always used while describing Joseph’s darkest and most troubling circumstances.
As the story unfolds what we discover is that it was in those hard circumstances that God forged steel into Joseph’s character. It was in the midst of those tough times that God molded and shaped Joseph and formed the character that would ultimately become Joseph’s legacy. The reason he became the man he was, was because of the way he conducted himself when times were tough. He was a trustworthy, dependable, and honest man even when it wasn’t easy to be so.
Consider the lives of any great man or women of God, famous or not famous, and you will discover the same pattern. They all had to endure tough times – some of them extremely tough – but it was in the furnace of adversity that their characters were formed, the steel was forged, the wisdom was gained, and they ultimately became the man who woman who you now look up to and admire.
As you endure your own tough times, stop to consider how God might be using the adversity to mold you and shape you into the man or woman He wants you to be. The tough times will only last for a season, but when it’s over what kind of man or woman will you be? Joseph ended up being a truly great man of God because in the midst of the adversity, he never lost faith and he never stopped honoring God. The same can be true of you.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 