Shaped in the Shadows

How do you embrace a God-sized dream for your life?

What is God up to when the difficulties of life are threatening to derail your dreams?

Difficulty is not DERAILMENT but DEVELOPMENT.

Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.
The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.
Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”
But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.

Genesis 39:1-20

3 AREAS THAT GOD USES TO SHAPE OUR CHARACTER:

1. Faithfulness Check: BEST vs. EASIEST 

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Galatians 6:9-10 (Luke 16:10)

The decisions you make in OBSCURITY will shape your DESTINY.

2. Word Check: ADDRESS vs. AVOID

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.  

Ephesians 4:15 (Luke 6:45)

3. Integrity Check: CONVICTION vs. COMPROMISE

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 (Matthew 28:18-20)

Do the RIGHT thing even if things don’t go RIGHT.

ANDREW MURRAY’S FORMULA FOR TRIALS:

He brought me here.  It’s by His will I am in this straight place.  In that fact I will rest.  He will keep me here in His love and give me grace to behave as His child.  Then He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends for me to learn.  In His good time, He will bring me out again—how and when only He knows.  

So let me say: I am Here by God’s appointment.

In His keeping. Under His training. For His time.