IMITATE THEIR FAITH/JOSEPH - "How Could I Commit This Great Badness?"

 JOSEPH breathed in the thick, warm air, noticing the scent of lotus blossoms and other water plants.  He was being led by a caravan of traders now traversing the lowlands of the vast Nile delta.  Picture a lone of men leading their camels along a watercourse toward yet another Egyptian town, occasionally startling a wading heron or an ibis into flight.  Joseph thought again of his home in the windswept highlands of Hebron, hundreds of miles away; he was in a different world now.

Imagine monkeys chattering and screeching from the tops of date palms and fig trees.  To Joseph, the speech of the people they passed seemed hardly more intelligible. Perhaps he tried to pick up any words or phrases that he could.  He might as well learn .  As far as he knew, he would never see  his home again. 

Joseph was scarcely more than a boy-17 or 18 years old-yet he faced challenges that would daunt grown men. His own brothers, consumed with jealously because Joseph was their father's favorite, had come close to murdering him. Instead, they had sold him to these traders.  (Genesis 37:2, 5, 18-28) Now after journeying for weeks, the traders were more likely growing more and more lightheaded as they neared the great metropolis where they intended to reap their profits by selling Joseph as well as their precious wares.  How did Joseph keep despair from taking root in his heart and crushing his spirit?  And how can we today keep life's challenges from destroying our faith?  we have much to learn from Joseph.

Next time: "JEHOVAH WAS WITH JOSEPH"

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