It comes with the blessing

One morning I was listening to Pastor Joseph Prince, it dawned on me that the word blessed, translated from the Greek to mean amongst many other things, happy, spiritually prosperous, also meant, to be envied. I struck a chord; I could now connect the dots that being blessed, beyond it’s spiritual and many times physical implications, comes with consequences. It takes wisdom to, first of all, know that being blessed means you are bound to be the subject of envy and have a responsibility to handle this well.

Joseph would be the perfect example, the one preferred by his father over his brothers, allegedly because he was the son of his old age; i think it’s more than coincidence that he was the one God had hand-picked amongst the children of Israel. His inexperience and naivety in recounting his dream to his brothers, which were interpreted to mean his brethren; even his fathers with his wives would bow in obeisance to him didn’t help his situation.

Unfortunately, or should i rather say fortunately, for him, he didn’t have a similar story to read of anyone else that had been on the receiving end of envious thoughts that had brewed over the years, such envy that would make his brothers plot to kill him, but would end up selling him for money. So it happened that on a particular day, that young man woke up Joseph, favourite and most trusted son of his father with a coat of many colours to attest to that, and went to bed, or should I rather say the sun set, with him in transit, as merchandise.

It is relatively a long read, as this man; Joseph, would see this blessing prosper him, even as a slave, falsely accused yet he’ll rise to the top of the Egyptian hierarchy. At the end of this story, we see Joseph reveal his brothers, who were hungry and came in search of grain to buy. These were Joseph’s words,

“Now, do not worry. And do not be angry with yourselves because you sold me.
Do not be angry with yourselves because God sent me! He sent me in front of you. He sent me so that I could save people from dying.”

He saw God bring his words to pass, irrespective of man’s evil intentions, he forgave his brothers. This Joseph, a figure of the Christ to come who looked down from the cross on his false accusers and the soldiers crucifying him and asks that the father forgive them. All they did in their hate and envy was put him on the cross where the father wanted him all along, as the lamb of God blotting away the sins of the world. We are not just assured of envy but victory over resentment. And God’s ability to use even the envy to work out his plan.

Envy is one of the traits of the fallen man; in fact, this motion led to the first-ever murder, a man murdering his brother in cold blood. On our way to a total renewal of our minds in the light of being dead to sin, it’s possible we find ourselves envying a brother or sister, another blessed by God. We overcome this by reckoning ourselves as siblings of the same, sons of the same father, an impartial one at that. We rejoice with those rejoicing while standing in faith and judging him faithful who said it, who also will do it.

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