The Power of a Clear Conscience — How Joseph Survived and Thrived

Put Yourself in Joseph's Place

My personal interest when I read the Bible is always to understand how God works, how God uses people to accomplish His will and plans. In the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, God has marked Joseph from the beginning, or even before his birth.

Imagine that you are young Joseph, and your 11 brothers are rejecting you, laughing at you, and all you are trying to do is share what you believe you have seen in your dreams — real dreams, revelation from God, prophetic prediction that one day you are going to be great, and your brothers will depend on your grace for their living. I imagine that every healthy child that is rejected by his friends, who is not popular in his class, would naturally have visions of his greatness and superiority over those who now don't want to play with him and reject him socially. Joseph's reaction to that rejection would motivate him to excel and find the power to do everything possible in his life to accomplish.

His being sold as a slave in Egypt is not a bad event — it is a chance to escape from his brothers' hate and desire to kill him. What to the outside reader of the story looks like a tragedy for Joseph is an opportunity. This is why he walks the extra mile and doesn't return from Shechem back to Beer-Sheva and say to Jacob his father, "I did what you asked me, but my brothers are not in Shechem. I looked around Shechem, but sorry, return-to-sender, the address was wrong." No, not Joseph. Because he has to prove to himself most of all that he is not only as good as his brothers, but better than them. He walks the extra mile to find his brothers in Dothan, and there is a divine nameless messenger in Shechem to help him by telling him where his brothers have taken their flocks to pasture.

Three Powers Working in Joseph's Head

After his initial sucess in Egypt, Joseph is in the Egyptian jail for false accusation by Potiphar's wife. Joseph knows something very important that gave him power to not only overcome the sorrow and depression of being in jail under false accusation, but to flourish and find joy:

Joseph knows and remembers the promises that God gave him in the dreams of his youth. Joseph knows that he has not sinned against his father and his brothers. His conscience is clear! This is a very important factor in Joseph's success. The knowledge that we are clear from sinful attitudes and that our motivation is honest and without vengeance to those who have harmed us and have acted against us is a great force for success. We know more than anyone else if we are guilty or innocent, and if our actions are motivated by good and friendly motives or by selfish and manipulative strategies to accomplish our selfish goals.

Even if the whole world is against you, but you know that you are right and that you have not sinned, but are saying and doing what is right by God — you will find strength to take the blows of life and turn them into power. The power that I call in Hebrew "davkah" power. The power to go against the stream, like salmon swimming up the river to lay eggs. Because the salmon knows that this is its destiny, the very reason for its existence. There the salmon finds the strength to face the hardship of life and keep going to reach the goal, the God-given goal for his life.

The Word "Then" — Everything Connected

The reading of Miketz starts with these words:

The first question that we must ask is what does the word "then" refer to? "Then" is a time word. You see, this word "then" forms an organic unit with the preceding chapter. Two full years had passed from the time that Joseph interpreted the dreams of his two fellow prisoners, the chief baker and the chief cupbearer. This is the same story, not two stories — one story connected and leading from one detail to the next. What happened two years before in the prison didn't end in the prison. The prison was the preparation for the interpretation of Pharaoh's dreams.

The murderous intents of the brothers, and Yehuda's business interests, cause the brothers to want to sell Joseph as a slave. God has already prepared the right people to take Joseph out of the well, and sell Joseph to the right Egyptian master, who had the right type of wife for the story to follow God's program. One event drags into the next, and they are all connected with a silver thread of God's program, and every detail works wonders to bring Joseph into Pharaoh's presence. It is God who gives the dreams to Pharaoh, and it is God who gives the interpretation of these dreams to Joseph.

Receive Everything With Joy

If we would learn this lesson and learn to take the hard moments of our lives — illness, hardships, and persecution — as training and preparation for the most important moments of our lives, we would be able to receive even the hardships of our lives with joy. This is a great Orthodox Jewish Hasidic teaching and principle: receive everything with joy! Know that the Lord is your Father, and He loves you, and, like a father, corrects and educates his sons. The Lord is the master of history, and He knows and plans everything before it happens. To us, things in our lives, and the history of our people and nation, might look like a disaster and a horror. For the Lord, what happens is just another chapter in the preparation of the world for its redemption. For us, every hardship is a disaster, for the Lord, all things work together for the good of those who love the Lord.

If some of you think that I am teaching Calvinism and predestination, please don't think this at all. I don't believe in predestination of our individual souls to be saved or damned. No, God is the master of history, but not the dictator of our salvation. Salvation is a result of God's grace and the Messiah's sacrifice, and our participation and obedience of faith to God's commands and faithfulness.

In the end, what looked like hardship was not a detour, but part of God’s process—each step leading exactly where it needed to. If we hold on to faith and integrity, the story will make sense in its time.