The morning of the day Joseph set out to check on his brothers was like any other day, bright and clear. As he set out adorning himself with the coat of many colors given to him by his father, he bid his father goodbye and most likely told him he would be back soon. He finally got to where his brothers were after searching for them till he was directed to where they were by a man who found him wandering in the field. Then, the unexpected started happening to him; he was maltreated, humiliated, stripped of his coat of many colors, cast into a dry pit, brought out from the pit and sold to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, Gen. 37:28. The Ishmaelites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and captain of the guard. Joseph became a slave in the land of Egypt, Gen. 37:36.

If anyone had told Joseph he would become a slave before nightfall of that day, he wouldn’t have believed. But that was what happened; in the morning of one fateful day, he woke up in his father’s house as a beloved son of a wealthy polygamous father; one who had all the freedom to do what he liked, ate what he liked, go where he liked to go; one who was served by servants and who was adorned with a special coat of many colors that was an indication of the special position and honor he occupied in the family. Yet by nightfall of that same day he had been stripped of his princely coat and became a slave in chains in Egypt. He was taken to the slave market and sold to the highest bidder who happened to be Potiphar all within a day! What a sudden downturn or downward change of life which could be referred to as a life of ‘from grace to grass’!

As if that sad experience wasn’t enough, as a slave in Potiphar’s house for close to ten years serving and doing all things expected of him with all diligence, he faced a further downturn of life when he was sent to the dungeon as a result of false allegations by Potiphar’s wife. The dungeon was a place of confinement with restricted movements, rationed food, and a place where prisoners are subjected to all manners of hard hardship and hard labor.

SUCH IS LIFE!

That is life for you! Life is full of uncertainties. It is full of sudden changes because everything in life has its season and time, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

Life has a way of surprising us with sudden changes that throws one off balance. Life changes unpredictably, one moment it is bright and sunny and at another moment it is dark and gloomy; one moment one is at the mountain top and another moment one is down in the valley; one moment one is at the zenith point the next moment one is down to zero point; one moment one is rejoicing, next moment one is mourning; one moment one has a house full of everything and at another moment one has lost everything as seen in the case of Job in Job 1: 1-19. Life is like a spinning wheel such that when it spins, those at the top go down/under while those beneath go up one moment, and the next moment those under go up and it keeps spinning like that. What is most intriguing about life’s changes is that unlike the spinning wheel that is controlled by man, no man has control over life’s sudden changes; no man can predict when it would happen, no man can prevent it from happening and no man knows for how long one remains before another change happens.

“For men also knoweth not his time, as the fishes that are caught in the even net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of man snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them” Ecclesiastes 9:11-12.

Man by technology can predict to a certain extent the times and duration of the natural seasons of summer, winter, autumn, and spring but not so with the seasons of life as it occurs to a man. This implies that no man has the power to have prior knowledge of change occurrences of life.

The time/duration one spends on one change differs from one man to another depending on the divine purpose it is meant to serve. Joseph’s own lasted for thirteen years.

See complete post here: http://lovelashblog.com/2020/08/18/dare-to-be-like-joseph-series-part-9-coping-with-sudden-downturn-downward-changes-of-life/

God bless you.