What is Your Worse Nightmare?

Click here: Psalm 105:8-22

REFLECTION

by Mary Alice McGinnis

I've frequently had a recurring nightmare as an adult. The detail of the dream often changes, but the overarching themes remain the same.

I am lost - dreadfully lost.

The more I try to find my way out, the more lost I become. 

I am met with dark alleys. Lurking enemies are around every corner ready to attack me.  Shadows of peril close in around me, their reality impossible to ignore.

I try to run. I cannot escape.

And worse yet? No one knows where I am.  Who will come looking for me?  Does anyone even care?   

The feeling of abandonment is crushing.   

Don’t you think Joseph felt like God had forgotten him?  God had given him a vision of his calling at a very young age.  Yet, he was betrayed by his own brothers and sold into slavery.  Then he was falsely accused and imprisoned. 

This verse is telling: “They bruised his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons.”

Scholars say that this verse could be rendered differently from the original language: 

He was laid in iron: or "the iron went into his soul."

 Have you felt the crushing weight of a burden so intense that it felt like it would crush your soul? These brutal irons—forged in grief, betrayal, and loss—clamp around us, dragging us into the depths of despair.

The Psalmist points to the key to unlocking our shackles of hopelessness. 

Famine struck the land in Joseph’s time, and the land was destroyed. Verse 17 says that God: “sent a man before them— Joseph, sold as a slave.”

God used Joseph’s hardships to prepare him for his part in God’s redemption story.  God’s story, as carried down from Adam and Eve to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and now Joseph, had the purpose of putting His faithfulness on display. 

Did you notice the prophetic tone of the Psalmists’ words?  Go back and reread these verses again.  Ponder these thoughts:

God sent Jesus, ahead of us. 

Jesus became a slave, a servant of the lowliest form. 

They bruised Him, shackled Him, and hung Him on a cross.

His pain, betrayal, and sufferings were real.   

His life was poured out, even unto death.

His Father turned His back on Him and abandon Him. 

Yet, God, the King of Kings released Him from the power and dominion of darkness and death. 

He is now seated on the righthand of God the Father and has been given the name that is above every name. 

Joseph’s story is also our story.  Where is God putting His redemptive story on display in your life, even through times of hardship?  God sees you!  He has not forgotten you.  He sent Jesus ahead of you. 

Verse 8: “He remembers His covenant forever, the promise He made, for a thousand generations.”

Jesus said,  “I have not come on my own; God sent me.” John 8:42

Prayer – Knowing You Jesus is the greatest gift! No matter what brutal irons of grief, betrayal, or loss threaten to drag me into the depths of despair, You have gone ahead of me! You will never abandon me! You will redeem me! You will bring me to safely into Your arms of love forever!