16 And He called for a famine upon the land;
He broke the whole staff of bread.
17 He sent a man before them,
Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
18 They afflicted his feet with fetters,
[g]He himself was laid in irons;
19 Until the time that his word came to pass,
The word of the Lord [h]tested him.
20 The king sent and released him,
The ruler of peoples, and set him free.
21 He made him lord of his house
And ruler over all his possessions,
22 To [i]imprison his princes [j]at will,
That he might teach his elders wisdom.
23 Israel also came into Egypt;
Thus Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.
24 And He caused His people to be very fruitful,
And made them stronger than their adversaries.
This passage of Psalm 105 is a reminder that things don’t always go the way we think they should. I can well imagine that Joseph was perplexed by the sudden turn of events that saw him a slave in fetters and irons. That wasn’t in his dreams! His dreams showed his family bowing before him, which was strange enough.
After all, he was nearly the youngest brother, and even his parents were to bow to him, how could this be? Then think of him in slavery, and yet his family was supposed to bow someday? Then he rose to the steward of Potiphar’s house, only to be thrown in prison. What in the world was going on?
Joseph certainly didn’t know the plan, he didn’t know how or why his family was going to bow. He didn’t know what any of that really meant, but he did know God had a plan for his life. And whether he was in chains or in prison, that was not the end. Ultimately, the king would free him, and make him second-in-command over all Egypt. But to what end? Even then, Joseph knew God was using him to save many people, but how did the dreams fit in with this?
Then, as we see in v. 23, his brothers came to Egypt, and God used Joseph to rescue his entire family. Their bowing was not important, Joseph had no desire to “lord it over them”. God had put him in a position to deliver his own family from famine and death. In the end, God used all of it to make them “very fruitful” and “stronger than their adversaries”.
Whether you’ve had a dream like Joseph, or not, God has a plan for your life. You will encounter hardships, things that don’t make sense, perhaps even things that seem to be going the wrong direction. Yet know that God has a plan, it’s a big plan, bigger than rescuing Israel from famine, and He has invited you to be part of that plan.
Whatever is happening, don’t lose sight of God, and let Him lead you through, even carry you if He must. As the writer of Hebrews tells us, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross…” Even Jesus didn’t get an easy road. Rather, He had the most difficult of all, to endure even death on a cross, to see the plan accomplished. Fix your eyes on Him, the author of the plan.