Who May Say It

Only one man in that room had the right to say today's verse, and he was the one who had been sold.

You may have had this verse quoted at you. Someone did you real harm, and then somebody who was not there, and who paid nothing for it, came along with Joseph's words about God sending him ahead. The words landed on you like a lid on a pot. They are true words, but they belonged to the one person who had the right to use them.

Look at what it took for Joseph to get there. He has just heard his brother Judah offer to stay in Egypt as a slave in place of young Benjamin. It is the first sign in more than twenty years that these men have changed. Joseph sends everyone else out of the room, and he weeps so loudly that "the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard." Then he says, "I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt." He names the wrong in the same breath as the comfort, and he is the man it was done to. Only after that does he say, "be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves."

He never takes those words back, and when he says them again at the end of Genesis, the wrong is still named: "ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good." What he refuses is the judge's seat: "am I in the place of God?" Choosing not to punish someone is a different thing from pretending nothing happened.

God, I have had this verse used on me, and I would rather learn to say it myself. First give me what Joseph had before he had the words: a closed door, and the freedom to weep behind it. Keep me from saying it too early, just to end an awkward conversation. And when I can say it, let me say all of it, "whom ye sold into Egypt" along with "God did send me before you." Thank You that You were at work the whole time, even in what was done to me, and that You can bring life out of it. Amen.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 243 is New Heavens and New Earth (2 Peter 3:13).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two