12 21 25 – At the End

Then it came to pass, at the end (miketz) of two full years, that Pharaoh had a dream

(Gen. 41:1)

I have often said that before you begin a project, you have to finish it. That is exactly how the Lord our God is. Before He begins a project, He already has the blueprint completed, the funding necessary, and everything is prepared before He sets the timetable in motion.

We see here at the beginning of the Torah portion, Miketz ("at the end"), after thirteen years of stagnation, the Lord brings about an end to Joseph's wait. And we should all have hope in the extremity (ketz) of something. We should all have hope that the Lord will finish what His preparation works and proceed with it with a blessing. This is the Hebrew understanding that when God brings an end to something, when He cuts something off, He actually has something in store for us—often a blessing, the paradise of our inheritance. And whatever that time of awaiting has been, it always proceeds with a major blessing.

As we see in Joseph's situation, he is radically changed. He is elevated into a position of kingship. He goes from the prison to the palace because of this miketz. Joseph was in prison. He was forgotten. He was lonely. He was on his own. Absolutely no way out. The only thing he could hope for was the word of the Lord. He could only hope in the Lord. What other option did he have? He had no family around him. He had no lifeline. No one was even there. His prison sentence was indefinite in his mind. He was never even told how long he had. The only thing Joseph had was hoping in the Lord. Does that feel familiar?

For those who have never been in prison—which I have not—if you are given the date of your release, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and you can just head toward that. Ironically, God did just that for the children of Israel: whether it was Babylonian captivity or any of the other captivities, God told them exactly how long it would be in order to give them hope. For us here in the 21st century, we are not as sensitive to understanding God's timetables for every event in our lives—positively or negatively—though every event does have a specific timetable :-). Regardless of our apparent limited understanding of God's timing, when you know a timetable, you can see through it, knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel and knowing when the end (miketz) will come. But if you do not know the date of your release—if you will be released at all—that produces a hopeless, doom mentality. That is one of the worst things you could do to somebody. That is the reason why people are given a sentence in prison—to give the heart hope, because the heart can hope when it knows there is a release date.

Joseph is in prison. No hope. Only the Lord. Literally nothing else would have gotten him through this trial. What else would have gotten him through other than hope in God? It is in these bleak situations, when we have no strategy and only dependency, that God will move on our behalf to fulfill His plan through us.

The bars were real for Joseph. The confinement must have been suffocating. His torment must have been daily. This man was innocent. But in that very instant that the Lord ushered in His timetable, Joseph was released and rose to power within hours (Gen. 41). His whole reality was radically changed and transformed without delay.

When heaven hits its appointed time, our entire reality can radically change in an instant. All the years of waiting, being confined, stuck in the mud, division, waiting around in a cell, can literally be reversed within moments. This is the power of God. It takes one dream to trigger Joseph's elevation. One dream, one thought formed in the head of Pharaoh. One moment of divine timing can replace years of stagnation. This is the power of our God.

While Joseph was incarcerated, he was not really locked in a mental prison, because later on when he looks back, he says, "Boys and girls, God's hand has been all over this. What you meant for evil, God meant for good, so that many would be saved alive" (Gen. 50:20).

All those years of painful isolation were the classroom—not the prison cell—of preparation for his greatness. If he had been released two years earlier (Gen. 41:1), as he had hoped, he would not have risen to kingship to save the world. So God, the Lord—the Good Shepherd (Jn. 10), the Great Shepherd (Heb. 13), and the coming Chief Shepherd (1 Pet. 5)—actually had him in a holding pen. While he was incarcerated physically, the Lord had him in a holding pen spiritually, ready to move into good posture at the appointed time (miketz).

At the appointed time, God had a purpose for the entire ordeal. I wonder if Joseph was clinging to the prophecy that God gave him in the dreams (Gen. 37)?

How about you? What are you clinging to while you wait for your miketz?

Shalom,
Alan

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