I’ve been reading about the life of Joseph again recently. There’s always so much to learn, from parenting to leadership to forgiveness to how God moved in Joseph’s life, and so many other stuff in between! I just noticed that there’s one portion that I may have seemed to overlook in the previous times that I’ve read about Joseph—the man who found him and pointed him to his destination.
Jacob, Joseph’s dad, asked him to check on his brothers and the flock that his brothers were pasturing. Joseph went to where his brothers were supposed to be, but did not find them there.
And a man found him wandering in the fields.
And the man asked him, “What are you seeking?”
“I am seeking my brothers,” he said.
“Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.”
And the man said, “They have gone away,
for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’”
So Joseph went after his brothers and found them at Dothan.
Genesis 37:15–17
After this, he found his brothers and we know what happens next: Joseph’s brothers threw him in a pit and sold him to be a slave, which eventually led to Joseph being brought to Egypt. His life in Egypt wasn’t smooth-sailing, but in the end he turned out to be the right hand of the Pharaoh and his dreams are fulfilled by God.
I don’t know who this man was because the scripture doesn’t say anything else, but what I find interesting is that he “made it” to the bible! Well, yeah, not everyone included the bible were good people, but the mere fact that these three verses weren’t left out in the story means it’s an important detail in Joseph’s life and it’s a detail that God didn’t want to be left out.
My observation here is that even though he was a stranger to Joseph, he became part of Joseph’s story because he cared enough to ask Joseph what (who) he was looking for, and he pointed Joseph to the right direction—a footnote, if you will, in the life of Joseph and the fulfillment of God’s purposes for him.
We can be apathetic strangers to people, or with a little effort, we can be a hinge that leads people to the fulfillment of God’s plans for their lives.
I pray that I will have that same concern for others, that even while I tread towards my own destination, whenever God makes my path cross with “strangers” who are seemingly wandering and searching (for answers), I will care enough to offer help and point them to the right direction when I can.
