Forgotten
Joseph’s prospects for deliverance from prison appeared to improve when his God-given gift of interpretation of dreams was put to use with Pharaoh’s cupbearer. The only thing Joseph asked of the cupbearer was “remember me when it is well with you, and please do me the kindness to mention me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this house. For I was indeed stolen out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the pit.”
“Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph but forgot him.” It must have been a dark night of the soul for Joseph once he realized he had been forgotten, left to languish in that Egyptian prison – the pit, as he called it. It was two years later, when Pharaoh himself had a disturbing dream he demanded the interpretation of, that Joseph was remembered.
It is easier for us to see the path God was leading Joseph down than it was for Joseph at that moment. We have the benefit of hindsight. Joseph came to understand and see what God had been doing as well. With that hindsight, Joseph might have told the cupbearer something like he later said to his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”
It is hard to see any good coming from our experiences while we are stuck in the pit. While we are languishing and forgotten by men, we are tempted to think we are forgotten by God as well. One day we will be able to look back and with hindsight say “all the way my Savior led me;” but in the pit, we will just need to look up and forward with faith that the Lord who said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” unwaveringly keeps that promise.
Thanks Steve! I am reminded of this comment about Spurgeon, and his response to his suffering:
Charles Spurgeon suffered terribly from depression, gout, rheumatism, neuritis, and a burning kidney inflammation. Yet he said, “It would be a very sharp and trying experience for me to think that I have an affliction which God never sent me . . . that my trials were never measured out by him, nor sent to me by his arrangement of their weight and quantity.
Obviously, Spurgeon didn't know why he was suffering, but was grateful that God was the "sender" of his suffering.