Joseph was in one of his darkest hours; he was lonely, downcast, about to give up his dreams and questioning his place in God. Suddenly, the call came from one of the king’s guards, “Joseph! Get cleaned up. Pharaoh is calling for you!”
In that moment, I believe the Spirit of God came mightily upon Joseph, and his heart leapt with excitement. He was about to understand what it was all about. As Joseph shaved and trimmed his hair, he probably thought, “This is the beginning of what God promised me. Now I know I heard from him. The devil has not been in control, and my life hasn’t been wasted. God has been directing everything the entire time.”
In a matter of minutes, Joseph was standing before Pharaoh listening to his dream. Joseph gave the interpretation of the coming famine and told Pharaoh he had to gather and store the nation’s grain. “Someone must be in charge of the storehouses. You have to find a man who is full of wisdom to oversee it all” (see Genesis 41).
Pharaoh looked around and then turned toward Joseph. “You! I appoint you second ruler. Only I will have more power in the kingdom than you. You will oversee it all.”
How quickly things had changed! The day came when Joseph stood before his brothers and was able to say, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Genesis 50:20, NKJV), and later he stated, “God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and he has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout Egypt” (Genesis 45:7-8).
Dear friend, very soon you’re going to understand your present fiery trials. God is going to bring you into the promise he gave you, and suddenly it’s all going to make sense. You’ll see that he has never forsaken you. He has been training you, preparing you, teaching you to trust him for everything. He has planned a time for you to be used, and that time is just ahead.