Memoirist Mary Karr said, “A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.” In a culture littered with filtered selfies, photo shopped profile pictures, pristine bios, and social media updates that for the most part, document only the best moments of our lives (I’m guilty too); Karr’s words are a relief to those of us who long for authenticity.
One of the reasons I love the Scriptures is the biblical writers didn’t attempt to sanitize the text. The personalities in Scriptures are depicted with flaws and imperfections. In fact, entire families are described in dysfunctional detail. Joseph’s family was no exception.
When the Scriptures introduce 17-year-old Joseph, he is tending his father’s fields with his brothers (Gen 37:1-11). Joseph wouldn’t be in the fields forever. God had a plan for Joseph, but no one knew that yet. At this point, Joseph’s situation looked dismal. An honest assessment of his life looked something like this:
- His brothers hated him because he was his father’s favorite.
- His mother Rachael had died giving birth to his brother Benjamin.
- His father was a polygamist.
- He’d grown up in an atmosphere filled with lying, cheating, and manipulation.
- He didn’t know when to speak up and when to keep his mouth shut.
- His brothers were so jealous of Joseph they were planning to murder him.
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t peg Joseph among those most likely to succeed. The kid had a lot of things going against him. At the tender age of seventeen, he’d already experienced a lot of suffering. Perhaps you have too. Maybe your family history is less than desirable. Maybe you’ve made some bad choices. Maybe you are neck-deep in heartache.
The good news of the gospel is that our future is not based on our past, it’s based on what Christ has done on our behalf. The Scriptures contain multiple accounts of God acting sovereignly on behalf of His people to bring about good from our greatest heartaches. Here are just a few examples:
- Esther was an orphan. An orphan who became queen and God used to save the Jews from annihilation.
- David was (in his father’s opinion) the least likely among his sons to succeed. God made David the King of Israel.
- Mary and Joseph came from ordinary families with few material resources. God used them to parent the Christ-child.
- Paul was a persecutor of Christians. God molded him into the greatest missionary the world has ever known and the author of two-thirds of the New Testament.
And Joseph? God had a plan for him too. A plan that took him out of the fields and to a foreign country where in a strange twist and turning of events he would go on to save an entire nation from famine. In Christ, our future isn’t based on our past. It’s based on Jesus’ past, which is pure perfection. Are you bothered by the fact you come from a long line of family dysfunction? If you study the Scriptures carefully enough, you’ll find yourself in pretty good company.
“For consider your calling, brothers; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor 1:26-29)
