[0:00]You know, we all love the story of a great comeback. Comebacks inspire us. But if you don't have to struggle for the success, there's no sweetness to it. And the truth is, there are no comebacks without first having setbacks. Setbacks are a part of life. We have health setbacks, financial setbacks. We have relational setbacks, we have career setbacks, emotional setbacks, uh, you know, many, many other kinds of setbacks. Now, one of the things that makes setbacks so difficult to handle—listen to this—is because we can't see what God sees. See, God can see the whole picture. He he can see the end of the story. He knows how it's all going to work out, so he's not worried. But we worry because we don't know how it's going to end out. We don't see the pieces of the puzzle, how they all fit together. I can't see the way that setbacks in my life are actually stepping stones to getting me to where God wants me to be. Now listen. Setbacks are the stepping stones to our goal if we trust God and respond correctly. They're the stepping stones to where God wants to take you. They're not impediments. They're actually the pathway to where God wants to take you. God uses both open doors and closed doors to direct us and to get us to where he wants us to be. And there's no better illustration of that truth than the life of Joseph. Now, let me give you some background. God promised a man named Abraham that he was going to build a great nation through his family. Abraham had a son named Isaac, and Isaac had a son named Jacob. And God later changed Jacob's name to Israel and that's where we get the nation of Israel and all the Israelites. Now Jacob had 12 sons. He had 12 sons from four different women. So this family, a little mixed up, has a lot of complicated relationships that you would expect to find in a blended family with four moms. Only this family is super blended. So you got 12 half brothers and at least one sister whose name was Dinah, from four different moms. Now that's a recipe for confusion and it's a recipe for competition. The second of the youngest of those 12 brothers was named Joseph. Now he's smart. He's good-looking. He's talented. He's a dreamer. He's favored by his parents, even pampered by his parents. And he's hated by his siblings. Now this brings us to the very first of seven major setbacks in Joseph's life that were actually stepping stones that God used to get him to another country, Egypt, and put him in a position that would eventually save his own family and two entire nations as well. Now, as we go through this list together of seven setbacks in Joseph's life, I want you to see how many of these you identify with and maybe realize that God has wanted to use these setbacks in your life as stepping stones, that what you have thought was actually bad, that God wants to use for good in your life. So let's go through these together. First, Joseph's first setback was growing up in a home where he was ignored and mistreated by his siblings. The Bible tells us this in Genesis 37:3-5. "Now Jacob loved Joseph," that's his dad, Jacob loved Joseph more than all of his other children. That's not a good thing, "because Joseph had been born in Jacob's old age. He was also born to his favorite wife, Rachel. Uh, so one day, Jacob gave Joseph a special ornamented robe." People have read it as a multicolor robe, but actually, it's kind of more like it was bedazzled. It might have had jewels on it. It was an ornamented robe, none like any other. And so Joseph gets this special coat because his daddy, he's his daddy's boy. "When Joseph's brothers saw that their father loved him more than he loved them, they hated Joseph. They would not even speak to him or they would not even acknowledge him." Okay, he's second from the youngest in 12 brothers, "and when Joseph told his 11 brothers about a great dream from God, they hated him even more." Now, some of you grew up in a home kind of like this. Uh, you were pushed around. You were put down. You were ignored. Maybe you were teased, uh, maybe you were even hated. Uh, and and you had a tough time growing up, and your childhood was not happy. Maybe one parent liked you, but the other didn't like you, or maybe one parent was absent and aloof or alcoholic. And maybe you had brothers or sisters who took advantage of you all the time. And your home life wasn't that happy growing up, and maybe you've always felt inferior to everybody else. Uh, maybe you were the runt of the family, the youngest one, the last one. Everybody's picking on you. But for whatever reason, your family of origin was not very happy. It was filled with a lot of pain and a lot of competition or maybe conflict. Have you ever thought about the fact that maybe God wants to use that in your life in ways that you've never even thought of? Have you ever considered that maybe God wants to use the pain in your growing up to shape you in a good way? To be sensitive to other people in their kind of pain, the same kind of pain? That maybe God would want to give you a ministry to help others growing up in families like that? God never wastes a hurt. This was the first setback. He grew up in a family where nobody liked him except his dad, and his dad liked him too much and that made him—the partiality—made them hate Joseph even more. Now here's the second setback in Joseph's life. It was being tossed into a pit of rejection. Now Joseph's relationship with his brothers goes from bad to worse. In fact, it got homicidal. And in Genesis 37:18-20, it says this: "One day, when Joseph's brothers were out in the field, they saw Joseph coming toward them from a distance, and they made plans to kill him. They're going to kill their brother. "Here comes that dreamer!" they exclaimed. 'Come on! Let's kill him. Let's throw him into a deep pit! We can tell our father that a wild animal attacked and ate him, and then we'll see what became of all these great dreams of his.' Wow, that's pretty brutal. They're going to kill their young brother because they can't stand him. It says in verses 21-24, "Then Reuben, now Reuben was one of the older brothers in the bunch, so he's got a little more level head. Reuben said, 'Let's not kill him. Let's just throw him into the pit here in the wilderness. And that way we won't shed any blood.'" Well, you're still going to kill him. "We won't shed any blood.' And he said this secretly planning to save Joseph and send him back to his father." Well, they thought that was a good idea. "So when Joseph arrived, his brothers stripped him of his favorite robe, the bedazzled one, "and they tossed him into the pit, which was a dry well without any water in it." This is a setback. Would you agree? It's a setback. Your entire family has turned against you, all your siblings. One of the most painful experiences in life is the experience of being rejected. Now, I doubt you've been tossed in a pit, but all of us have faced rejection in some ways. This is pretty radical for Joseph. They want to kill him. But they want to leave him in a pit without water and then let him die slowly in the desert. Now, I doubt that's been that severe for you, but you've probably gone through experiences in life where you were rejected by somebody, where somebody was supposed to love you, didn't, and they just tossed you aside. They threw you in the pit, the pit of rejection. They turned their back on you. They walked away. Uh, they left you high and dry and without any resources, with no way out. And you've nothing to fend for yourself. You're you're in a pit in the desert, and they walked away to have dinner with somebody else. That's a setback, and it's painful. And if you've had that kind of rejection, I'm sorry. I really am. As your pastor, I'm sorry. Now, when this happened to Joseph, he was only a teenager. He's just 17-years-old. It's pretty hard to have your whole family gang up on you like that. That's trauma. You'd expect him to have post-traumatic stress disorder. But then comes a third setback and some of you have had this one happen to you too. Maybe you had it happen to you at work. Here's the third setback: being sold out for money. Being sold out for money. Some of you had this one happen at work. Genesis 37:26-28 says this: "After they threw Joseph in the pit, the brothers sat down to eat dinner." They're just going to ignore it. And and and uh, "But then they saw a caravan of traders passing by, headed to Egypt with camels loaded down with spices and balm and myrrh," Then Judah, one of the older brothers, said, 'Hey guys, we won't gain anything if we just let our brother die in this pit."' So, you know, why don't we make some money on this and we'll all share in the murder cover-up? "So why don't we do this? Let's don't kill him. Let's sell off our brother to these traders." We'll make some money here. And all the brothers thought that was a good idea. Okay, let me stop right here. All the brothers thought that was a good idea. The majority is often wrong. Just because everybody's doing it, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, just because everybody thinks it's right, doesn't make it right. Right is right if it's right. Wrong is wrong if it's wrong. It doesn't matter how many people say something's right. Morality is not determined by majority. All the brothers thought that was a good thing. Yeah, well, they were all wrong. And so they sold Joseph for 20 shekels. Now let me stop here, they sold Joseph just for 20 shekels to traders. In the book of Exodus, it tells us that slaves were sold in those days for 30 shekels, so they're not even making the going rate. They sell him for a bargain. They sell their brother for 20 shekels. That's not even what a normal slave would be paid. They sold Joseph for 20 shekels to the traders who took him to Egypt. This is just getting worse. Now, this is pretty callous. But, you know, today in the business world, uh, selling out for money happens all the time. Partners sell out partners. Some of you have had a partner cheat on you or sell you out. Bosses sell out their employees. Managers sell out those who work under their care. Owners sell out their companies to make a profit. Relationships are often tossed away quickly in order to make a buck. Some people even walk out of marriages in order to make more money. But here's something I want you to notice. The brothers have the wrong motive for what they're doing. They say, "We're going to make some money, so let's sell our brother into slavery. And the consequences are going to be incredibly painful to Joseph. In fact, they're going to alter the rest of his life. But in spite of the fact wrong thing to do, wrong motivation, but God fit it into a plan for good. And this setback where he is sold into slavery is actually going to be a stepping stone to Joseph's future, glory, and greatness. We'll come to that in a minute. Now, the fourth setback that Joseph experienced is this: losing your identity. You know, being secretly sold and taken away to a foreign country is going to erase Joseph's identity. Back home, everybody's going to think he's dead. People are going to mourn him and in their minds, Joseph no longer exists. In their minds, his life is over. The Joseph they know is gone. His identity has been erased. Verses 31-35 says this: "Then the brothers took Joseph's robe, the bedazzled one, "and they slaughtered a goat, and they dipped the robe in blood." This is quite a system here. "And then they took the robe back to their father and said, 'Now we found this coat. Does it belong to your son?' Now, notice they didn't say, 'Does it belong to our brother?' It's your son, not our brother. Does it belong to your son?" And Jacob recognized it and cried out, 'Yes, yes. Some wild animal must have killed Joseph and torn him to pieces.' Then Jacob sobbed. He sobbed for a long time, and everybody tried to comfort him. And he said, 'I'll grieve this loss until the day I die.' You know, this next setback may be one that some of you've had. You've had your identity stolen from you, and you're still grieving about it.
[13:20]You lost your identity when the divorce happened. You lost your identity as a husband. You lost your identity as a wife. You lost your identity as a mother. You lost your job. You lost your identity as a CEO or as a small business owner. And something that you found your identity in was taken from you, and you're never going to get it back. I'm sorry. As your pastor who loves you, I'm sorry. That is a big setback. But the setback does not have to be the end of the story. Joseph is going to be given a brand new identity and even better identity. Now, here's the fifth setback that Joseph faced: being forced to take a job you don't want. Many of you know that one. You couldn't find the job you wanted, and you've had to take a job to settle for less than the best. You know, in a matter of days Joseph goes from being a pampered son in his father's home, to being a slave in somebody else's home. He's now doing work he never expected to do. He's now spending his days in ways he never expected in a foreign country. He's an immigrant. He's an indentured slave. Verse 39 says this: "Meanwhile, in Egypt, the traders sold Joseph to be a slave of Potiphar, a man who was an officer of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt." Now it may be that right now some of you are in a job that you really don't want to do, you don't like to, you wish you didn't have to, you wish you were doing something somewhere else. And the job you're in right now feels like slave labor. It feels demeaning. It's not what you used to be doing, and it feels like a setback. And many of you probably can identify with Joseph and how he felt. He's going, "I didn't sign up for this." But, you know, whatever Joseph did and wherever he went, he did the best he could with what he had for Jesus Christ, for God. He served with his whole heart, and he did the best he could, trying to honor God with good work and good character. In fact, in this case, he takes demeaning work, the work of a slave, and he gave it meaning. How? By doing it for God instead of for a human master. He saw God as his boss, not humans as his boss.
[15:45]And he took every task with the attitude of I'm going to do this for God. And so his excellence stood out and he actually started getting promoted by his master. But his boss's wife had other plans, and that leads us to the sixth setback. And the sixth setback in Joseph's life was being punished for doing the right thing. Being punished for doing the right thing. Some of you had this happen to you. You know, sometimes we have problems because we did the wrong thing and we brought the problem on ourselves. But there are other times where we have problems for doing the right thing and that's what happened to Joseph. He's falsely accused, actually, of rape, and in Genesis 39 it says there in verses, I think 18 and 19. "Now, Joseph was well-built." That's what the Bible says. "Joseph was well-built and very handsome, and after a while his master's wife took notice. 'Hmm,' she says, 'he's well-built and handsome,' and she began to lust for him. And she begged Joseph, 'Come to bed with me.' But Joseph refused saying, 'How could I do such an evil thing and sin against God and my master?' That's integrity. "And though she tempted Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be alone with her." He's setting the parameters in his life. He wouldn't even be alone with her. "But one day, when Joseph was working inside the house, none of the household servants were inside, so Potiphar's wife came up behind him and grabbed Joseph by his tunic, demanding, 'Sleep with me right now.' But Joseph resisted, and he wriggled out of his tunic and ran outside.' I mean, he's running. Now when she saw that she still had his tunic in her hand, she just made up this story for the other servants. "Look, the Hebrew slave tried to assault me, but I screamed," she did no such thing, "so he ran out of the house but he left his tunic here.' And when her husband came home, she gave him the same story. Now Potiphar, his boss, "burned with anger when he heard his wife's accusations, and he arrested Joseph on the spot and dragged him off and threw him into the king's prison." Oh wow. He's done nothing wrong. He's done nothing but serve his master. He's shown integrity. He's done the right thing, and now he gets thrown into prison. Joseph's life for 13 years is going down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, one setback after another. He goes from the pit to the traders to Egypt to slavery and now he's in prison. That's not what you call upward mobility. He's having one setback or another. None of these are his fault. What do you do when the setbacks are being caused by other people? Every one of these setbacks in his life, he didn't cause. Every one of these setbacks in his life were caused by somebody else who was out to get him. There was one more that happened. So this last setback that Joseph faced is being forgotten by people that you have helped. Now, this has probably happened to you too, being forgotten by people you've helped. Joseph gets thrown into prison and in prison, he starts serving God by serving others in prison. You know, having integrity, having humility, serving with honor. And he quickly gets promoted to being the top prisoner in the prison. And while he's there, he meets a couple of guys from Pharaoh's court who've been thrown in prison, a wine steward and a baker who are both from personal assistants to Pharaoh. And to make the story short, he interprets a couple of dreams, he gets to know these two guys, and when he interprets a dream, Joseph says this to one of them. "Joseph said to the king's wine steward, 'When you are freed from prison and you are restored to your position with Pharaoh, please show kindness to me,' because he had shown kindness to this guy, "please show kindness to me, and remember to mention me to the king so I too can get out of this prison. I was forcibly kidnapped from my homeland and now I'm stuck in this prison, even though I've done nothing to deserve this.' But the wine steward never gave Joseph another thought. He forgot all about him." Now that's the last, that's the kicker. He just totally forgets him. So Joseph is left to rot in prison even after he's helped a guy he didn't need to help. But this guy forgets him. You have helped people in your life, and they've forgotten that. And when you needed help, they didn't help you back. One setback after another. I'm sure you've identified with one or more of these seven setbacks. Most of these, and all of them combined, would have made anybody probably just give up. But Joseph didn't give up on his dream. God had told them he was going to do great things with his life. God had told them he was going to make a difference with his life, and he just kept on keeping on. What made Joseph so resilient? What kept him going? How did he not give up for the comeback? Joseph did three things that kept him going, that kept him resilient, that kept him keeping on until God turned the tide and brought him to the top position. Number one. Here's the first thing that made him resilient. Joseph depended on God's presence, no matter where he was. He depended on God's presence, no matter where he was. You know, there's a phrase that's used in the story of Joseph five times. Five times. And anytime something is said five times in scripture, God is saying, "I want you to get the point here." And the thing that's used five times, it says, "And the Lord was with Joseph." It says it five times. Now I want you to notice that no matter what the setback was, God was with Joseph in that setback. First, God was with Joseph when they threw him in the pit, and God was with Joseph when they sold him to the traders. The Bible tells us this. Acts 7:9 says this: "Jacob's sons became jealous of their brother Joseph, and they sold him to be a slave in Egypt. But," notice this, "the Lord was with Joseph and brought him safely through all his troubles." Now look at that verse for just a minute. "Brought him safely through all his troubles." When you have God's presence in your life, it doesn't mean God's going to spare you troubles. It means God's going to bring you safely true through. God could not spare Joseph of these troubles and get him to Egypt and bring him to eventually where he'd be second-in-command under Pharaoh. So Joseph had to go through these setbacks in order to have this big comeback, but he got him safely through it. I don't know what you're going through right now, but you're going through it. God could have taken you around. God could have kept you out of it, but he's going to take you through it. He'll bring you safely through it. Why? Because God is with you. He was with Joseph in the pit. He's with you in the pit—the pit of despair, the pit of rejection. Then notice the second time the phrase is used. God was with Joseph when he's sold to be a slave to Potiphar. Genesis 39:1-2: "Now when the slave traders arrived in Egypt, they sold Joseph to a man named Potiphar, who was one of Pharaoh's officials and a captain of the palace guard." This is a highly placed man, "The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man." Notice that. "The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man." He lived and served where? In the home of his Egyptian master. Now notice, he could have been sold as a slave to anybody. But God engineered the fact that he's sold as a slave to a guy who was the head of the palace guard in the palace of Pharaoh. He's he's living in Potiphar's palazzo. Okay? He's not living in a shack. He's being and he's so successful as a slave. Why? Because the Lord was with him and God was watching him. So he was watching him in the pit, he's watching him in the palazzo. He's with him all the time. Then number three, God was with Joseph when Potiphar promoted him from being a slave to his personal aide. Verses 3-5. "Potiphar realized that the Lord was with Joseph." Notice a nonbeliever realizes. "Potiphar realized that the Lord was with Joseph." This is the third time this phrase is used, and that the Lord was making him successful in everything he did. Well, Potiphar is a smart guy and he goes, "God's blessing this guy. I want this guy on my team." So Potiphar was very happy with Joseph's work and he made him to be his personal aide. And he put Joseph in charge of everything in his home, entrusting him with everything he owned." That's not slave work, friends. "Then God blessed everyone working in Potiphar's household because of Joseph." Question. Is God blessing everybody at your workplace because of you? "God blessed everybody working in Potiphar's household because of Joseph, and God blessed everything that belonged to Potiphar too." Potiphar wasn't even a believer. But God blessed Potiphar's business because he had a believer working for him and and and Joseph was a man of integrity. God was with him in the pit. God was with him in the home—in the palazzo. God was with him in the work. Now next God is with Joseph when he's falsely accused. You go, well, how could he, then why was he falsely accused? The Bible says in the world you'll have tribulation. And Joseph is put in jail for a crime he didn't commit. God was still with him there. Just as he was with him in the pit, he's now with him in the prison. Verse 20-22: "Joseph was thrown into prison, where all the king's prisoners were held. But even there," notice "the Lord was with Joseph." This was a fourth time. Even in the prison, the Lord was with Joseph, and caused the prison warden to like Joseph. And before long the jailer put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. The guy can't do anything wrong in this situation. He's in prison, but God's blessing him. He quickly rises to prominence for his credibility, his character, God's blessing on his life. And in verse 23 it says, "The jailer did not have to worry about anything for Joseph was responsible, didn't have to worry about anything for because the Lord was with him. The Lord was with Joseph, and whatever he did was blessed, and God made him succeed in everything he did." Now let me say right here, if you're a businessman, you need to go study all those five verses, because notice how many times success is mentioned. He was successful in everything he did. He was blessed. He was kept safely. Why? Because the Lord was with him. Here's the point. No matter where Joseph was, in the pit, on the path to Egypt, Potiphar's palazzo, in the prison, or eventually he ends up in Pharaoh's palace, God was always with Joseph. He's with Joseph in the good times and in the bad times, in the setbacks and in the comebacks. Sometimes we only think that God is with us in the comebacks, but there was no time when God was absent in Joseph's life. Joseph knew that and he depended on it. That's true of you too. God is never away from you. He's never left you. He's never abandoned you. He's been there all the time, even when you didn't feel his presence. When you were worried, God was there. When you were fearful, God was there. You just didn't recognize it. When you were exhausted, he, God, was there. When you're depressed, God is near. When you're scared, when you're scared to death, when you're lonely, God is near. In despair, he was there. What am I saying? Setbacks cannot keep God back from you. The key is to tune in to his presence. Focus and feel his presence. And when you can't feel it, you still rely on it in anyway. You trust in it anyway, even then. And you say to yourself, "I am not alone. I am not alone. God is with me. I am not alone." And when you realize that God is with you all the time, you can handle any setback. Joseph had one setback after another, but he said, "I am not alone. God is with me." Number two, he not only depended on God's presence, he depended on God's plan and God's promise. He depended on God's plan and promise no matter how long it took. God had given Joseph a dream as a young man of what he was going to do in his life, and he never lost that dream. At the climax of the story, when Joseph, through a whole series of circumstances, ends up being raised up to be second-in-command, only Pharaoh has greater command in Egypt. He's not even Egyptian, and he's the second most powerful man in Egypt, and he saves the country from famine because of his smart management. And the brothers actually have to come down from Israel to get grain because they're hungry. They don't even know that Joseph's alive, and they don't even recognize him when they see him. And in a powerful encounter, you're going to want to read this story, it's too long for me to tell you, but at the climax of the story, when Joseph gets to confront his brothers, when they come to buy grain in Egypt, Joseph says this to them: "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, yes, in the pit, in the prison, in selling me off, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." That's a verse you should memorize. Genesis 50:20: "They intended it for bad, but God intended for good." You know all the setbacks you've had in your life of rejection, of pain, of problems, of sorrow, of grief? They intended it for bad, but God intended it for good. It's not a set back. It's not a set back. It's a stepping stone to get you where God wants you to be. Think about that. Joseph depended on God's presence. "I'm not alone." He depended on God's plan and promise. "God has a dream for my life, but I'm not giving up no matter what the setback is. He's just getting me in the position for it." And number three, he depended on God's help in every challenge. Time and time again, in each one of the setbacks, he faced a new challenge that was way beyond his ability. But he trusted God to give him the help he needed. At one point, Pharaoh has a dream that he can't interpret, and his wine steward suddenly remembers there was a guy in prison who knows how to interpret dreams, and he calls and he says, "That guy might be able to help you." And the Pharaoh has Joseph brought out of prison. And in Genesis 41:15-16, the king said to Joseph, 'I've had a dream, and no one can explain it. And I've been told that you can interpret dreams.' And Joseph answered the king and said, 'I'm not able to do this, but God can. I can't explain the meaning of dreams, but God will do this for the king." And he did explain it. And he's raised up and he's hired by Pharaoh, and he becomes second-in-command, and he becomes over all of Egypt. And in verse 41, we see the great comeback of all time. Verses 39 and 44: "And as they discussed who should be appointed for the job that Pharaoh had, Pharaoh said, 'Who could do a better job than Joseph? For he is a man who is obviously filled with the Spirit of God.'" I want people to be able to say that about you. You are obviously filled with the Spirit of God. And the king said to Joseph, 'It's obvious that you have greater wisdom and insight than anybody else. So I'm putting you in charge of my country.'" Did you get that? "And all my people will obey your orders, and your authority will be second only to mine. And I will now appoint you governor over all of Egypt,' and the king removed from his finger the ring engraved with the royal seal, and put it on Joseph's finger, and he put a fine linen robe on him, and he placed gold and chain around his neck. And the king said to him, 'I am the king. But I say this, no one in all of Egypt shall so much as lift a hand or foot without your permission.' That's going from the pit to the ultimate power. That's an incredible comeback. Now, I don't know what setbacks you've gone through in life. I don't know which ones you're going through right now, but I want to ask you three questions. Will you depend on God's presence no matter where you are?
[33:13]Whether it's the pit or the palazzo, or the prison or the palace? Will you depend on God's plan and promise for your life, no matter how long it takes, and see those setbacks as stepping stones? Will you depend on God's help when you face every setback? Let's bow for prayer.
[33:38]Father, uh, help us to see setbacks as stepping stones. Help us to realize that we can't see the end of our lives but you can. And that how you take even the painful, even the harmful, even the hurtful, and you can even use that for good in our lives. And that every setback can actually be a stepping stone to getting where you want to get us to be, and put us in the position for the blessing you have in store for us. Lord, we realize that even that Joseph's dysfunctional family, the favoritism that his parents showed and the sibling rivalry and all of the messed up relationships in that family were part of the plan that in even all of that pain, it eventually got him to Egypt and he got raised up to be second-in-command and saved that nation and saved Israel. Help us to realize that we can't see the end of our lives. We can't see what you're doing. Help us to trust you with the pieces of our lives, and to realize that setbacks can be stepping stones. Now you pray. Say, "Jesus Christ, come into every area of my life. I give you all the parts of the puzzle that I don't understand, and I want to trust you." Say this: "Jesus Christ, I want to depend on your presence, and even when I can't feel it, help me to realize that you are always with me. I'm never alone—that I will never be abandoned by you. And no matter how long it takes, help me to trust your plan, trust your promises, trust your purpose in my life that you have a good plan for my life. And that when other people mean it for bad, you mean it for good. And that you're bigger than the problems, that you never waste a hurt, that they're all part of the stepping stones to get me where you want me to be. And then, Lord, help me to trust you to help and give me the strength and the power and the challenges that I can't face, whether they're in the pit of rejection, or in the problems of being falsely accused, or when I am imprisoned, or when I am doing work that I don't like to do, or all of the different things that experience, Joseph experienced. Help me to trust you with your purpose and your plan and your promises, and to trust you with your power in my life and your presence in my life. Jesus Christ, I give myself completely to you and I pray this in your name. Amen.
