Hi, dearest tribe member! It’s been a couple of weeks of being absent from this space, but I trust that you’ve been hale and healthy the whole time. Of course, I won’t miss the chance to welcome you into October though we’re 7 days in already. It feels like we’ve been witnessing fast-paced years recently, but I think 2025 takes the award for the fastest. I think viewing the year this way should give us one more reason to be grateful to God, because anyone who’s not in a good state of health would likely not be able to tell how fast the days go by. To them, time might feel so slow-paced. So, TMAR reader, what do you have to say to God?🙏
As I count my blessings for the month, I remember that it’s our Anniversary this October!💃 Yes, you read right, you have been reading from this space for 3 years already, 18/10/2022 to be precise! Time flies, right? While I would love to type an epistle of gratitude, I’ll just wait for the release of the Anniversary edition. But before then, thank you for staying with me and being a strong ally the whole time.
Today, we want to see what goes on ‘In The Silence’. This is a title that I’ve wanted to write on for a while, but I’ve had to put it on hold to sit and reflect on it. We can talk about ‘The Silence’ to mean that dark, quiet, or uneventful period in a person’s life. It could be that phase where you’re not celebrating anything and nothing seems to be in the works. You literally feel like you’re sleeping and waking with the regular things in between, and boom, rinse and repeat, the cycle goes again!
While ‘the silence’ might be a difficult place to be because a lot of people do not know how to journey through it, your case is different. Do you know why? First, it’s because you are not in it alone, there’s a Companion right there with you even though it doesn’t feel like it! Second, you have examples of forerunners who have been down that road and got to the other side much better than they started, and without getting burned. Shall we talk about one of them?
Alright, I’ll remind you about Joseph in the Bible! This Daddy’s (Jacob’s) beloved had a promising future like we all do, even had dreams and aspirations which he would often share with his family members, being the free-spirited guy he was. I can imagine Joseph to be that bubbly child whose life was going smoothly until tragedy struck in the twinkle of an eye and things fell apart. Siblings’ conspiracy led him into the pit, and before he knew what was going on, he was on a slave trade journey into a strange land where he would spend more than a decade of his prime. Imagine, a whole Daddy’s beloved going through all that!
When he must have thought things couldn’t get worse, one Boss-Madam (I wish I could write this in Yoruba, let me just close my eyes and write it- ‘Iyawo Oga’🙈) sized him up one day, saw this handsome freshness, and decided she was going to have him to herself. ‘What kind of problem is this, for heaven’s sake?’ he must have thought. Well, he did try his best to avoid her over time to the point of running for his life and chastity while leaving his shirt behind.
For all he cared, she could hold on to that, but she wasn’t going to have her way with him and make him sin against God. Little did he know that was going to be her perfect tool to implicate him and bring him down (that must have been her thought). On a lighter note, it’s interesting to see that many of the funny stories Nollywood tells had happened somewhere thousands of years ago in the Bible. If we didn’t see it first in the Word, we probably would have thought it was an exaggeration.
As Joseph journeyed further and deeper into the silence after Bossman got angry with him because of Madam, he landed in prison! When he was having his big dreams of people bowing to him, if he had been told he would have a stop at the prison first, he probably would have cast and bound, probably even shut the person up. But there he was, a chief prisoner in a strange land! However, despite all that had happened in the course of years, what Joseph later acknowledged and confessed was that God was in the details from the beginning (Genesis 45:5-7).
For someone to eventually have mentioned that God sent him before his brothers and entire family circle to preserve lives, he must have added one to two that it was God leading him all along and ordering his steps even when it had to do with the pit, slavery in Potiphar’s house, and the prison experience. But guess what? When all those years of suffering were in full swing, he might have felt abandoned by the One He trusted in, just like we sometimes feel on those days when everywhere seems quiet and things don’t seem to work out the way we want them to.
My person, I think reading through this summarized version of Joseph’s story should stir up hope in you that even though it feels like there’s nothing in the works, there is indeed something in the works! If not the Master Planner who weaves and synchronizes events and times and brings the best out of the worst of situations, who else would have thought that a journey that started in the pit would end up as a Prime Minister in the Palace? Only One can do these things, and there is none like Him.
You know, I think reading the Bible alone, God has proven to us time and time again that He is not our mate when it comes to planning out things, and even in any way🤷🙌🔥. He will always do things that beat our imagination hands down and leave us in awe of Him. I say that respectfully, but at the same time, I dare tell you that you don’t know where this story ends, no, not yet! You can make your calculations, deductions, and projections, but have you met the One who controls times and seasons and isn’t bound by it?
Just look at the details of the story above, in fact, I’ll recommend that you pick up your Bible and read Genesis 37, and then Chapters 39-45. It might be a long read, but it’s definitely worth your time. See the hand of God in the affairs of a man! Mind you, this is just one out of many other brilliant stories in the Word. Then, look into your own world and listen to awesome pit-to-palace testimonies of people.
Don’t even look too far, take another look at yourself, a whole living testimony and testament to God’s faithfulness through the ages! If He has done it before with and for you, who says He’s done and He can’t do it again? Imago Dei (Image of God), come on, have some faith! This Father you’re dealing with is bigger than what you think of Him. You might have it all figured out in your mind or even on pages of books, but your Father still has your timing in His hands, and it’s going to fall in place according to His own will and purpose for you(Proverbs 16:9).
So, the purpose of today’s post is to water the ground as I still have a lot more to call your attention to as touching this topic. Trust me, I have a full note already, but I won’t rush it😁. We’ll have a part 2 next week, and together, we’ll draw lessons from the story of Joseph and see how it applies to us. Till then, kindly drop your thoughts in the comments about something that stood out to you from the post or evenJoseph’s story. Remember to share the link with someone who needs to read this. Enjoy the rest of your week!💫
