by: Dr. James Porch
Personal hope rises to abide at some point in a season of struggle against despair, provided…
Admittedly blocked and struggling to complete my own sentence, I realized desperation to discover and validate my own role in knowing new hope.
The following perspective offers my best shot, up to now.
Remember Joseph? This child of papa Jacob’s pride, the many-colored-coat boy, adolescent dreamer, slave victim of his brother’s treachery, chief operating officer for Pharaoh, also took a big risk in a time of serious economic threat. Stated further, the Hebrew in Egypt dared to defy his own potentially do- nothing attitude rather than merely accepting the plight of the time.
Remember Pharaoh of Egypt? One night he had two successive dreams—one of seven ugly range cows devouring seven feedlot cows, and the other visualizing seven nubbins of corn swallowed by seven well filled out ears. Furious and frustrated as his magicians offered no conclusive answer, the high potentate called in Joseph, currently serving a long stretch in prison. The young man appeared before Pharaoh, heard the dreams and cut right to the issue, predicting seven years of good harvest followed by seven successive years of famine. Scared, angry, or whatever, Pharaoh impressed by Joseph’s insight elevated him to governor with the assigned task to manage the duties to prepare for the coming hunger plight. Also Joseph got a wife, Asenath, as a further expression of Pharaoh’s grace.
Now by his faith in God and Pharaoh’s confidence, Joseph possessed a free from slavery future. The stress of detailed planning and meticulous management could have possessed his life to the point of total reluctance to choose to add anything to his new responsibilities.
Nevertheless, “before the years of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph.” One he named Manasseh meaning “God has made me forget all my troubles and all my father’s household.” The second carried the name Ephraim, “for…God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction” (Genesis 41).
Facing lean known but yet to what extent unknown years ahead, Joseph started his family. RISK. No way over, beside, or around the fact Jacob’s son took the risk to not be halted wondering, “What’s over on the other side of the famine?” Even his son’s names announced the strength of his risk—release from the power of past affliction and positive focus toward his life encounters ahead.
Your trials toward hope may inevitably run through a big new land of risk. Personally, my hope road not yet traveled has been and will be toward and through risk. For me, the principle composes part of my personal DNA. The year of my birth, 1941, the United States government declared The Great Depression of the 1930’s had ended. That proclamation had no affect on my home community. Actually, the 1929 Wall Street crash received little attention. According to my parents, they had planned for me and hoped for me all the way through hard economic times. I suppose a birth child of risk just learns to court risk as a part of his life.
