I lived in Destruction Bay, Yukon, for three winters, from 19-22. It was very cold. It is in the shadow of huge mountains, so for three months in winter, we could see the sunshine on the mountains across the lake, but we remained in the shadow. In summer, on the other hand, we had bright daylight all night long. The community of 32 people celebrated June 21st by starting a baseball game at midnight and ending hours later with barbecued t-bone steaks at the community hall. While I have many good memories of those years, it was also a season of binge drinking and excess, leading to a complete personal crisis for me and returning to God. When I committed my life to God 100%, I thought I had given up all fun and my life would turn dreary until I got to heaven. I was so wrong.
Life with Jesus has been vibrant and colorful, but I wonder how it would have been without the desert experience.
Forty years later, I overheard my mom describing their journey as I strayed farther from how I was raised. “Then he moved to Destruction Bay.” For her, it symbolized a prodigal son season of utter chaos. Thankfully Mom and Dad got many friends from their church to pray for me, and those prayers became pillars in our missionary support team ten years later.
This week I realized that the prodigal son becomes the child the father always wanted (Luke 15:11-32).
The son who did everything right struggled with entitlement and a judgemental critical spirit.
To be clear, I am not suggesting we intentionally engage with sin to experience God’s grace. Not at all. But God tailors special desert experiences for each of His children. He hopes to draw closer to them through these experiences, but many get hung up fighting their way around the trials. The way forward is through.
God is working hard to develop humans who will reign for eternity.
Narrative Theology from Genesis
The Bible teaches us about God’s processes through stories. Consider three people from near the end of the book of Genesis.
Rebekah (Gen. 24-25)
Rebekah was highly capable and loved serving. She watered all of Abraham’s servant’s camels and then left her parents to journey to a far land to marry a stranger. Imagine the courage and the capacity to make things happen. But it got her in trouble.
When Rebekah was pregnant with twins, she prayed, and God told her the older son would serve the younger son (Gen. 25:32).
The Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger.”
(Gen. 25:23)
Rebekah conspired with her favorite younger son to deceive her husband to make God’s will happen. Her husband was blind in his old age. Jacob was hesitant, not because it was the wrong thing to do, but because he might get caught.
Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “But my brother Esau is a hairy man while I have smooth skin. What if my father touches me? I would appear to be tricking him and would bring down a curse on myself rather than a blessing” (Gen. 27:11-12).
Courageous Rebekah said, “It’s all on me.” She took it upon herself to fulfill God’s plans through deception, manipulation, and power-over. We never hear from her again.
Jacob (Gen. 25-49)
Jacob continually struggled to get God’s blessing through human striving. Even near the end, he was upset with his sons for revealing to the Egyptian ruler they had a brother. One brother had to offer his children as a pledge so they could get more food in Egypt. He is one of the big three patriarchs, but one can see him crawling over the finish line.
And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers” (Gen. 47:9).
Joseph (Gen. 30-50)
Joseph, like Rebekah, gets a prophecy from God about the future.
Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had; for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.” Then his brothers said, “Are you going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words
(Gen. 37:5-8)
Joseph tells his brothers about his dream. They got furious. This is similar to Abel, who gave an acceptable offering to God, and his brother got furious. Giving the right offering or receiving God’s plan for your life is still a good idea. If we do not tell others what God has called us to do, we risk losing our call, forgetting our dream, and becoming normal.
Joseph’s brothers are slightly better than Cain. They narrowly avoid killing their brother, instead selling him into a lifetime of slavery.
The Bible gives a strong sense that Joseph embraced his chaos season, the season when nothing makes sense. Since Joseph embraced what he could not change, God blessed him. This reminds me of the famous Serenity Prayer.
Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed;
courage to change that which can be changed,
and wisdom to know the one from the other,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Summary
Of the three persons compared in this study, Joseph thrived to the end.
- Joseph let God judge good and evil (“Am I in the place of God?” Gen. 50:19). There is no sense of bitterness, entitlement, criticism, smugness, or pride. He remained humble and remembered who he was even when he was successful beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.
- Joseph worked at being the right person no matter how unfair and chaotic the circumstances were.
- Nobody rescued Joseph. And nobody rescued the prodigal son. When we learn to rely on God alone for daily life, we are on a good trajectory. And we are wise to be careful to give our loved ones space to connect directly to God. I have two prayers these days. “God, help me to be the right person all the time, AND help me to connect others directly to You.”
