Genesis 41:52 And the name of the second called he Ephraim: For God hath cause me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction
In the not-too-distant future, my wife and I and some others will be going to the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville. It has lovely, old-world charm with new-world technology. We will see a choir and an orchestra of many different instruments. Before the concert there will be a cacophony of noise, a confusion of sounds. There will be basses, violins, trumpets, drums, and other instruments all doing their own thing, warming up for the concert. It sounds confusing, but when the conductor steps up and taps his baton on the music stand, everything gets quiet. Then comes the most beautiful music. It is a symphony then, not a cacophony. It is sound that is in sync, together.
That is what you find when you read the story of Joseph. People had forgotten Joseph and there was coming a time when Egypt would forget her plenty, but in Genesis 41:52 Joseph says he had forgotten his toil. He had two sons. The first he called “Manasseh: For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house.” Later on he had a second son named Ephraim “for God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.” So he was in a bad place, a land of affliction, in a bad time of famine with bad people, the Egyptians who had thrown him into prison, yet what you find is that God’s providence is the orchestration of time and people and place. In short, providence is God’s orchestration of elements too numerous or tiny to see into a picture too big to absorb.
Could Joseph have seen the big picture of what God was doing with him and through him? No. He did not know what God was doing. If you read Psalm 105, you are reminded that God was incubating a family into a nation in Egypt for a purpose. Did Joseph see the big picture? No. Did Joseph even comprehend the thousands of little details, the slavery, the famine, being forgotten, his family, Potipher and his wife? No. Some things are too small for me to notice and some things are too big for me to absorb.
The answer to that is the providence of God. Providence is God’s seeing ahead. He is seeing ahead and providing for things we don’t even know will be needed. God’s providence reveals His sight, His heart, and His ability. It is God’s view, what He can see, God’s heart, whom He loves, and God’s ability, what He can provide.
Pharaoh thought Joseph had saved the day. He said of Joseph, “God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art.” He told Joseph, “I’m going to put you in charge of collecting food so we don’t starve when the time of famine comes.” Joseph did that because God had given him the interpretation of dreams, wisdom, imprisonment, slavery, and rejection of his family. God had taken all the bad things that came Joseph’s way and woven it into the big picture that was nothing but God.
I don’t always see the big picture and I don’t always see the little details. There are too many details and they are often too small for me to notice. What God has in mind is too big and too amazing for me to see. The relief comes from realizing I don’t have to notice all the small things or see the big things to know that God does.
So, for Joseph there were thousands of details, some of it good and some of it bad, but all part of a bigger picture Joseph could not see. Joseph said of his brothers’ deeds toward him, “You’ve meant this for evil, but God meant it for good.” Even the bad things others did to Joseph, God meant for good and used in a way that was positive all the way around. Joseph forgot his toil because the providence of God is the orchestration of elements too numerous to see and to a picture too big to absorb.