030 Joseph: Becoming a Bozo

I grew up playing with a blow-up Bozo the Clown punching bag. I loved that I could punch it, bop it, and kick it…and it would always bounce back up. No matter what you threw at it, you couldn’t keep Bozo down.

Oh, that we could be like Bozo! When life hurls its punches, we get knocked down. And many of us have a hard time getting back up. We just stay down – beaten, bruised, defeated.

Joseph is a lot like Bozo. He took shot after shot, but he kept bouncing back. Now here in Genesis 45, he has gotten knocked down again. This time by the memories of abuse triggered by the appearance of his brothers – the very ones who sold him into slavery. He gets slammed by a wave of resentment and a gut punch of grief.

But somehow, Joseph was able to forgive his brothers. He was able to stand up before them and reconcile.

How was he able to do that? Like the Bozo punching bag, Joseph had a weightiness deep down inside him that enabled him to keep bouncing back. It was a sense of God’s sovereignty – a deep, abiding conviction that his life was totally in God’s hands. 

Joseph saw a bigger picture. Put another way…he refused to let the immediate define the ultimate.

Joseph also saw a better picture. He refused to allow his future hope to be dashed by the present hurt. 

Whenever life throws a punch and knocks you down, you’ll face a choice.  Do you get angry at God?  Do you accuse God?  You could and some do.  Having been knocked down, they opt to stay down.

OR…you could say, “You know, this is painful…and it doesn’t seem to make much sense.  I don’t know how God is going to use this, but I’m going to get back up and trust that one day He will.”

Text: Genesis 45

Originally recorded May 6, 2012, at Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN.