Reconcile your past or it will live on in the present

FRIDAY, AUGUST 17: The amazing reconciliation story between Joseph and his older brothers is quite a lesson in life. The prior pain between Joseph and his brothers was real.

Genesis 50:1, 2, 7, 10 And Joseph fell upon his father’s face, and wept upon him, and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.

However, even more real than that was the future ahead for both Joseph and his brothers.

Before Joseph could live on to experience a great future of leadership and legacy, he had to let go.

Can you imagine the intense pain he had, knowing that for many years he was presumed dead by his father and that he was wished dead by his brothers?

What pain Joseph must have had in his heart.

Yes, even though he had attained a place of purposeful leadership in Egypt, there was still unsettled history.

It is important to note that your history can hold you in a place of powerful bondage even when you are an innocent victim.

If you do not reconcile with your past, the past will live on in the present to make a dramatic impact on your future. Things left unsettled will breed an unsettled future.

Joseph knew how to grieve correctly. After all, Joseph had suffered so many losses since his childhood, that he must have grieved right in order to become a success in his life.

I am sure Joseph grieved while being hated by his brothers, placed in a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery by his brothers, and most of all being separated from his father and baby brother because of those older brothers. 

Yet, upon the reappearance of his brothers, there was a new process of grieving that must take place.  

Joseph was reunited with his father, but then his father died.

Can you imagine how cheated Joseph felt? Can you imagine how Joseph must have felt knowing that there was now a permanent separation between he and his father? Oh, the time that he was robbed of, because of hateful brothers.

A key reality with Joseph was that in spite of all that he experienced, he kept his heart towards God.

Joseph never let go of God's hand and God was always in Joseph's heart and habits.

That is most likely why God continued to grant Joseph tremendous favour, even while he was in a foreign land.

Point to note is that the favour of God works quite fine in a foreign place. Yes, as long as your heart is right, God will cause you to survive and thrive even while in the land of your enemies.

With all of the past pain, Joseph's present pain was greater than he had ever experienced before. His father was dead, which was a pain unlike any other.

Yet, Joseph did something. He mourned completely. That pain was so dramatic and so heavy that Joseph had to be ever so careful to mourn right.

Depending on how Joseph handled that very moment, he would either be propelled into his purpose or he would abort his destiny.

Joseph experienced and endured the pain of that moment. He grieved totally; he wept bitterly. Joseph did not hide the pain of that moment. That was honest pain. That was complete pain and Joseph made the separation between he and his father a permanent reality.

The threshing floor is a place of separation. That is where the wheat is separated from the chaff.

As it were, Joseph's father was the chaff and Joseph was the wheat. Once separated, there would be no rejoining, as it was painful.

Yet, Joseph even mourned in excellence.  He mourned completely. There was no holding back of the pain of his loss.

You see, once you grieve in the right way, it gives you the right of way to your future. You cannot continue to grieve bitterly and be blessed to live for the future.

No, that is when the pain of the past still has a hold of you.

Follow Joseph's lead. Honour your past by grieving over it and then living your promised future. 

There is more ahead for you than there is behind you. Mourn on and then move on. Your future is waiting just for you. Blessings Abound.