In Due Time, Not our Time

In  Genesis 40:14, after Joseph interprets the cupbearer’s dream that the cupbearer would be restored back to the king’s court, Joseph asks him, request, “Remember me when it is well with you, please do me the kindness and mention me to Pharaoh that I may get out of this prison or house.” 

Joseph like any of us would want to get out of prison which is a terrible place.  In fact, in Genesis 40:15, the prison he was in is translated as “pit,” and the word “pit” in the ESV can be translated as an underground dungeon with little light, air, or space. In other words, Joseph is in a nasty place.

Did the cupbearer remember Joseph after he was restored to Pharaoh’s court?  No, or not immediately.  Genesis 40:23 tells us he “did not remember Joseph but forgot him.”  In fact, it would be two more years before the cupbearer would remember Joseph before Pharaoh, when Pharaoh himself had a dream that no one could interpret. 

At this point in Joseph’s life, he would have been in slavery and prison for 13 years, since we find in Genesis 41:46 that Joseph was 30 years old before he was finally released.   Let us stop for a moment and think about how discouraging and broken Joseph would have been in those years of suffering and imprisonment.  Broken dreams and a broken heart.     

Here is the crazy thing now, despite the brokenness, God was working, working all things for something good.  Here is where great faith comes in.  Psalm 34:18 tells us that “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted.”  Even when we don’t feel that God is near, God is working all things out, even our broken dreams and our broken hearts for good. 

Our brokenness is not the greater part of the story, but God’s presence and plan is.   Listen to how Psalm 34:18 continues, God is not only near to the brokenhearted, but “saves those who are crushed in spirit,” and then the Psalmist writes that though “the afflictions of the righteous are many, the Lord delivers him out them all.” 

After two long years transpire in Joseph’s life, Pharaoh himself had two dreams.   We read in Genesis 41:8 that these were nightmares and that “his spirit was troubled.”  We also read that none of his magicians or wise men could interpret them.  It is at that point the cupbearer tells Pharaoh, “I remember…  I remember my offenses” and tells him about Joseph.

Now look at vs. 14, “Pharaoh sends for Joseph” and then we read “They quickly brought him out of the pit.”   Joseph was 30 years old when he was delivered from that dungeon, which means he was in slavery and prison for 17 long years.   Psalm 41:1-3, listen to King David’s testimony after running from Saul for many years, “I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined to me and heard my cry.  He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock.”

The Apostle Peter reminds us of this truth this way in his first letter, I Peter 5:6, “Humble yourself under God’s might hand, so that at the proper time he may exalt you,” or as the KJV translates it, “he will lift us up in due time.”  In due time, God’s time not our time.