"He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”(Genesis 39:9)
Running. Sometimes it's the best option. Sometimes we need to stay & fight, but sometimes we need to run. Just get out of there.
When I think about running, I'm reminded of the great movie Forrest Gump. Among his many interests, Forrest is known for running. He ran from bullies when he was a kid, ran for Alabama in college, ran into the line of fire to rescue Bubba, & one day just took off running....for months! We all remember the scene where Jenny yells to Forrest, "Run, Forrest, run!"
There are times that we need to tell ourselves this same thing.
Joseph has been sold into slavery by his brothers. Not only that, but his brothers told his dad that he was killed by a wild animal. Joseph finds himself in the house of Potiphar. God is so evidently with Joseph that Potiphar puts him in charge of everything in his house. Well, almost everything. He withholds just one thing from Joseph, his wife. Now, this doesn't seem to be a problem for Joseph but it definitely is an issue with Potiphar's wife. She has a crush on Joseph. She asks him to be intimate with her. Evidently she was persistent. One day when Potiphar is away, she comes on to Joseph again. This time she grabs a hold of him, trying her best to get what she wants. (She sounds like someone who was never told no when she was a kid!) Joseph doesn't think. He doesn't talk. He doesn't respond. HE JUST RUNS. Run, Joseph, run!
This is amazing on several notes. Joseph is in a foreign country. No one he knows is around. He could have gotten away with it. Who would ever know? Who would ever see? God would. Joseph knows that. His reply to Potiphar's wife the first times she hits on him is, "How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" Joseph's character didn't stay in his hometown with his family, it went with him to Egypt. He was committed to God no matter the company.
Also, this ended up costing Joseph further. He was in a foreign country, living as a slave, separated from his family & now he would be going to prison, all because he honored his master's marriage. Guy can't catch a break. And yet all this time God is in control, and he never loses sight of that!
We see in Joseph a couple of applications. When it comes to our relationship with God, is it a Sunday thing or a 24/7 thing? Does our character change with our company? Who are we when no one is looking? Joseph shows us that our relationship with God is something that we must treasure about all else. We must seek him, obey him, depend upon him, in good times & bad, no matter who we are with or what we are doing.
We also see that sometimes we should just run. Actually, most of the time we should run. There is this misunderstanding among believers that we can stand & when we can't stand we call on God. What we fail to realize is that we are never strong enough to stand. We are never able to stand on our own merits in our lives. We are in need of God's grace every day. When temptation comes, we don't need to reason, think, speak or linger, we just need to RUN! Just like Joseph. The best thing we can do is just get out of there. Get out of the situation altogether. Whenever we find ourselves in compromising situations that can hurt our relationship with God, we just need to run.
What is it that we are reasoning with? What is it that we are lingering with? What is it that we need to run from this new year? I believe the Lord has three words of advice for us, "Run, Forrest, run!!"
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