Even in prison Joseph honored the Lord's name and brought him glory as the all-powerful, all-knowing God who alone could interpret dreams. His testimony of God's greatness, along with his humble dependence on him, revealed a deep friendship with God which was cultivated in a prison cell of suffering (Psalm 25:14). His suffering, rather than being a sign of the absence of God, was evidence that he was being set apart for a special purpose, which God fulfilled in his life. God never forgets his beloved!
We tend to focus on the many years Joseph spent in prison as he was waiting for God to deliver him. Even after asking the cupbearer to remember him, he was forgotten for two more years. But God never forgot him. During this time, Joseph was learning to trust the Lord with all his heart and not rely on what he could understand (Proverbs 4:5-6). He was learning endurance and perseverance in trust in spite of his circumstances (Romans 5:3). What seemed like the worst years of his life were instead some of most blessed as God taught him how to walk closely with himself.
I’m amazed as I read about the imprisonment of believers and how they seemed to thrive in captivity, much like Joseph. Richard Wurmbrand spent 14 years in a Romanian prison camp because of the Gospel. There, he was beaten daily and subjected to much physical suffering. Amazingly, he and the other prisoners used their chains to sing songs of praise to God. After being released, the Lord led him to start one of the most powerful ministries to persecuted Christians in the world – Voice of the Martyrs. If we choose to focus on the terrible aspect of his suffering, we miss the whole point. He did suffer tremendously, but eclipsing this horror was the greatness, glory and power of Christ in him (2 Corinthians 4:17). This resurrection power by the indwelling Holy Spirit that Paul writes about enabled him to keep praying for and loving his enemies (Ephesians 1:19), to show Christ’s sacrificial love to other prisoners, to stand on God’s promise and rejoice in the midst of pain and, finally, to return to the trenches so that he could show Christ’s compassion and love to other Christians suffering persecution throughout the world.
Another miraculous story showing the overriding grace and glory of God in suffering is the life of John Bunyan. He was also put in prison because of the Gospel, because he refused to give up his right to preach as a free man, saying he’d rather that moss grow on his eyelids in the prison than to give up that for which God had called him to do. During his imprisonment he wrote ten books, one of which is the second best-selling book of all time – Pilgrim’s Progress. He later testified that God gave him the story in a dream and then enabled him to write it. What seemed like wasted years in a cell, God used to bring a story of redemption that would reach hundreds of millions of people: "What [Satan] meant for evil, God meant for good" (Genesis 50:20). When John Bunyan was set free, he was one of the most sought after preachers of his day. People wanted to hear from a man who learned to walk closely with God during extreme suffering and loss and was still declaring the goodness and kindness of God.
We may not experience such extreme suffering, but we will definitely go through times where it feels like we’re locked up in some kind of cell (John 15:20; 16:33). A prison is a place where we feel trapped, where there’s no sign of being delivered, where there are sparse supplies of something that we desperately feel we need. Instead of focusing of all the ways that we’re missing out and losing our freedom in these prisons, God wants us to rejoice in him, to thank him for his sovereign goodness and kindness in allowing us to be where we are and to rest in his good plan (Philippians 4:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:18). He promises that he’s with us no matter where we are, and that nothing will ever be able to separate us from his love (Matthew 28:20; Romans 8:38). He promises that even in the deepest darkest places, like the bottom of an ocean, he’s there -- and it’s not darkness to him (Psalm 139:8). Where we go, he goes. And where he is the light of the glory of Christ is shining (Matthew 5:14).
