Back in the 80' there was a song that came out by a group called Meat Loaf. Now, I don't recommend that you listen to Meat Loaf but this one song I believe is a very important song with a very important point. And no, I won't sing it, but I'll read you some of the lyrics.

It starts off with this guy singing to the girl that he is with. He says

Then he goes into this story about how many many years ago he was madly passionately and tenderly in love with this other girl. He loved her so much that it hurt. And he concludes his story with

Then the song returns to the present day, and the singer is now singing to his current girlfriend and he says;

Who will you be in 10 years? This is a very serious question. It's one I have to ask myself all the time. Who will I be in 10 years? Note, I didn't say, Where will I be, note that I didn't even say "What," I said "Who." Who will I be?

How will I have reacted to the pain and the trauma in my life? What will be my response to the pain I feel today? Or to the pain I experienced when I was young?

How do we respond to suffering, how do we respond to our entire life's dreams and goals being shattered into a million pieces. How do we respond to …life?

I have a very close friend who went through a very trying relationship a few years ago. It was a very tragic and traumatic and painful time for him. Even today when you talk to him, and that person comes up in the conversation, you can see the pain in his eyes. We talked about it again a short while ago and he said. "You know the sad thing is that I wonder if I will ever let myself love anyone as much as I loved her. I wonder if I will ever trust anyone that much again. Because I'm afraid to get hurt?"

And isn't that exactly what Meatloaf was singing in his song?

How do we respond to pain? How do we deal with the pain of the past? How do we deal with the pain that our very own families brought upon us? How do we reconcile this pain that God has allowed to happen to us? Why would God do such a thing to us? How do we respond to the fact that our closest dearest friends have abandoned is? How do we deal with the fact that we feel God has abandoned us?

 I used to really like Joshua. In fact if you asked me who was my favorite old Testament character was, I would always say Joshua. That's a nice name. Unusual and nice. Joshua.You see, Joshua never really messed up. He was always doing the right thing. But recently I've started to like one other character in the Bible enormously. His name is very common. His name is Joe. In fact it is so common that there are supposed to be more Joe Smith's than anything else in the US. But my last name is Mammen, so I could never call my kid Joe. He'd end up schizo. Can you imagine: "hey, Joe Mammen."

Let's open our Bibles to Genesis 37.

I'll give you a brief synopsis of what has been happening here. Jacob has 2 wives, 2 concubines and 12 sons, out of these 12 sons came the 12 tribes of Israel. Joseph was the most loved child of Jacob because he was the first born of Rachel, the love of Jacob's life. Which, results in resentment amongst the other kids.

Then one day Joseph who is 17, has a couple of dreams and in these dreams his brothers and his father all bow down before him. Now if I had a dream like that, you know what, I wouldn't tell anybody about it. But Joseph decides that everyone needs to hear his dream. This ofcourse doesn't win him any popularity contests. And it makes his brothers hate him even more.

Then one day he is sent by his father to go check out his brothers. As he approaches his brothers they see him and like the good brothers they are, they plot to kill him.

Look now at Gen 37:17 and we'll read from there onwards:

Here was Joseph, 17 years old, he was kidnapped by his own family, he was sold into slavery. Do you for an instant think that he deserved it? Of course not. Selling someone into slavery is not a valid punishment for telling you about a dream they had? We don't have control over the dreams that we have at night. But what's worse, is this was a dream from God.

Who will Joseph be in 10 years?

Now let's skip to Gen 39

Have you had trauma in your life? Joseph had, at the age of 17 he'd been sold into slavery. Talk about trauma. Talk about feeling abandoned, talk about feeling that God has left you. Yet when we next see Joseph, where is he? The boy who probably hadn't ever had to work too hard in his life is now a slave. Abandoned, rejected, cruelly treated, now not a human being with rights, but a possession. Here's a person who could have immediately claimed that he was a victim.

And yet what happens to him. He rises in the ranks, why? Because he is trustworthy, hard working and responsible? Is that it? Or is it because he has responded to pain by becoming moldable, becoming flexible, accepting the hand of the pruner in his life?

Who will Joseph be in 10 years?

Back now to 39:6

He's still worried about God. He was thrown in to a well and God let that happen to him. He was sold into slavery by his own brothers and God let that happen to him. He was made into a servant in an Egyptian's house and God let that happen to him.

And yet, he asks

how can I sin against God?

Do you see how much trust he still has in God. That line speaks volumes and volumes about his faith in God and his love of God. The psychological torture alone of being sold as a slave into a land far far away would have decimated everybody………. had they taken their eyes off God. And yet Joseph not only has made the best of a horrible situation, but what is he doing? He is praising God for it?

Skip now to verse 20 Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.

Let me ask you a question: Who will Joseph be in 10 years?

Then he interprets the baker's dream which is a tragic one, skip to verse 20

Who will Joseph be in 10 years?

So Pharaoh has a dream and no one can interpret it. Then finally 2 years later the Cup-bearer remembers Joseph and tells Pharaoh that there was this guy in prison who could accurately interpret dreams.

Now in verse 41:14

So Pharaoh tells him the dream and Joseph tells him that it means that they are going to have 7 years of plenty, followed by 7 years of famine; and that Pharaoh should find someone to store 1/5^th of the food during the good years so they will not starve during the bad years.

Now turn to verse 41:38

Now let's go back to when he is tempted by Potiphar's wife. What is his reward for keeping God's word? It's one thing to be punished if you do wrong. But here he was doing the will of God and he's thrown in jail. But not only in jail. He's thrown in a dungeon. He kept God's word and he got thrown in a dungeon. God, I kept your word and this is the reward I get? God, I did what I should have, I did the best I could and this is what you gave me in return? How could you do this to me? Why did you do this to me God? Why? Why? Oh God why?

Have you been in a relationship which was shattered? We all have. I have. Oh God, I loved that person, I loved that person with all my heart, I would have done anything to make them happy. It was even a Godly relationship. Sure it had it's problems, but I had committed to it 100%. God I was all there. And you Lord, you took my heart and you tore it to little shreds.

Wouldn't you have the tendency to feel that God had abandoned you, that you couldn't trust God any more because He did his to you.

Who will I be in 10 years?

In China they have a type of bamboo plant. The bamboo plant remains less than six inches tall the first year. And they water it regularly. The second year the bamboo plant still remains less than six inches and they still water it regularly. The third year it still remains less than six inches tall and they water it regularly. In fact this happens for 5 years. And then in the sixth year the bamboo plant literally grows to over 40 feet over a period of 3 weeks.

Let me ask you this, did the bamboo plant grow to 40 feet in 3 weeks or did it grow to 40 ft in 6 years. If any one of those years if they'd just stopped watering the bamboo, would it have grown to 40 ft or would it have died?

Who will you be in 10 years?

Are you responding to God's dealings in your life with resentment? Are you building up walls of hate? Are you even building up walls? Or are you falling at the feet of the Almighty God and saying "What is it that you would have me learn? What is it that you would have me become?

Who will you be in 10 years?

Joseph gets thrown in the dungeon, for all he knows, it will be forever. For all he knows he will never get out of there. But what is Joseph doing? Is he building a wall of hate, is he mired in his own self pity, cursing God, cursing life, cursing others? Or is he taking control of his situation, praising God, ready to be used by God even in prison. He's ready to be used by God even in this hole of purgatory. When he runs into the cupbearer, and he says, "dreams are of God, tell me it.' What's he doing here? Is he licking his own wounds? No, he's ministering to the man even in prison. He interprets this dream for the cupbearer. The cupbearer gets his job back and the baker gets executed exactly as Joseph prophesies. He obeys God and then what happens to Joseph?

I'll tell you what happens? Nothing happens, the cupbearer forgets him. It's one thing to be forgotten by an enemy, but it is entirely horrible when a friend forgets you. How long was Joseph in that dungeon after the cupbearer left? One day, two days? How long? Look at chapter 40:23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him and:

Two full years, two full years. What happened in those 2 full years? I'll tell you... nothing. Nothing happened. For two full years. But he'd already been in prison for 4 years. This man put in prison unjustly, abused and sold by his family, and then forgotten for two full years. How many of us have been forgotten for 2 years? Left in our own hell for 6 years? Or abandoned by our family or abused by our own brothers?

Where was God for those years in prison? Where was God while Neil was suffering traumatically from the after effect of a broken relationship? Where was God when YOU were broken and torn apart. I'll tell you where God was, he was exactly where he was with Joseph.

The Lord was with him. That's where God was. For six years, Joseph was in the dungeon. For six years, nothing happened or did in fact nothing happen? For the two years after the cupbearer left, did nothing happen?

Or did in fact everything happen. God was saying: I am not done with you. I am not done refining you. You are not yet ready to be used greatly by me. I am not done creating you into a vessel of my Glory.

I am the potter you are the clay. I will create you into a vessel for Glory. My Glory.

God was watering the bamboo plant that was to become the ruler of all Egypt. Is he watering the bamboo plant of your life? He is mine. He is mine.

What is your response to God. What is your response to pain? Is it, never again. Is it from now on I will never trust anyone. Is it to impose the pain you have felt to people who love you in return. Will you say, "I want you, I need you, but there 'ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you, so don't feel sad, because 2 out of 3 ain't bad."

Are you responding to God by building a wall or are you responding to God by learning and becoming moldable?

Who will you be in 10 years?

Remember my close friend who went thru that trying relationship. When he said. "You know the sad thing is that I wonder if I will ever let myself love anyone as much as I loved her. I wonder if I will ever trust anyone that much again. Because I'm afraid to get hurt?"

At that cut to my heart because I went thru the same thing. And when he said that, My response was O God no. If anything I know now that I can love someone so selflessly, that I can love someone so powerfully. I never knew I could love someone like this. And I will, Oh God I will love someone like this again. You have opened my eyes to how much I can love somebody. You have opened my eyes to the way I want to love my wife.

Who will I be in 10 years?

God is molding me. God is watering me, God is pruning me. God rarely ever uses a man or a woman so greatly until he has hurt them deeply says AW Tozer. Until he has taken them and broken them like Joseph and then put them back together piece by piece to make them into pliable vessels for his Glory. Then even did Pharaoh acknowledge God, because of Joseph.

Will you respond to trials and thus God by becoming hard or will you respond by becoming flexible?

Who will you be in 10 years? Will you be hard, soured. Or will you trust God so implicitly that you abandon yourself to his leading? Will you lie broken before him and praise Him? Or will you say: God you did this to me. How dare you. I don't trust you.

Or will you say God, I only ask that you finish with the molding process and teach me every single thing I should learn through this. Oh Lord what is it that I should learn, so that I may never have to learn this lesson again, so that I may never have to go through this pain again. Show me Lord. Please show me.

And yet will I praise Him even in the Storm.

"Remember, there are too many people in the world who are mad at God because He didn't give them what they thought he should give them. They fear He cannot be trusted or may abandon them at any given time. …….Behind this morbid and deadening condition often lies the wounded pride of one who thought he/she knew all about the ways of God in providence, and then was made to learn by bitter and bewildering experience that he/she didn't." (J I Packer in Knowing God).

Who will you be in 10 years?

What is wisdom? Wisdom is not in knowing the plans of the Almighty God, but rather in accepting humbly these unknown plans and still loving and trusting God with the very fiber of your being. Ecc 5:1-7 Trust and obey Him, reverence Him, worship Him, be humble before Him.

Why did God do this to Joseph? Because Joseph wasn't ready to be ruler of all Egypt. Because God wasn't done molding Joseph. Then when Joseph was ready, God used him so greatly that the entire nation of Israel created it's identity and became a nation there in Egypt. And out of that nation did God's most awesome work get done, the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Did Joseph know that God was going to use him so greatly?

I don't think so, did Joseph ever even see the long term effects of the Messiah even when he died at the age of 110 after a long and prosperous life? I don't think so.

Yet throughout his life you see this humbled man. Even after he become ruler of all Egypt you never see him ever talk about the cupbearer who forgot him for 2 years, and more than that you never

hear that he punished Potipher's wife for throwing him in the dungeon so wrongly. And remember he now had Supreme life and death power over not only Potipher's wife but also over Potipher himself.

He didn't do it, because he knew that it was not his place to deal with them, but God's. And yet this man, broken to pieces humbled by God was to be used so greatly. Even when he faces his brothers as the ruler over all of Egypt, he says of their selling him as a slave. "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." …..And he forgave his brothers.

Why have you had trauma in your life? Because God isn't finished preparing you for His Glory. But what's more important is how are you responding to God's dealings in your life? How are you responding now to the hurt in your past? To the abuse that your parents put you? To the rape that that paroled criminal subjected you to? To the hurt and abandonment that your ex-boyfriend or ex-wife put you through? How are you dealing with that?

Are you rebelling against the potter? Or are you responding like Joseph?

Who are you going to be in 10 years? This is such and important question.

Are you building walls? Or are you trying to become softer and kinder and of a gentler heart each day

Is God massaging your heart to make you the kind of person He can use? Or do you want to have to go through this lesson all over again?

When will you be ready to be used by God? Who will you be in 10 years? Will God be able to use you to comfort others going through exactly what you went through?

I'd like to read to you, one of the biggest influences in my life.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

You're going to meet an old man someday! Down the road ahead--ten, thirty, forty, fifty years--waiting there for you. You'll be catching up with him.

What kind of an old man are you going to meet? That's a rather significant question.

He may be a seasoned, soft, gracious fellow--a gentleman that has grown old gracefully--surrounded by hosts of friends . . . . friends who call him blessed, because of what his life has meant to them.

He may be a bitter, disillusioned, dried-up, cynical old buzzard--without a good word for anyone--soured, friendless and alone.

The kind of an old man you will meet depends entirely on yourself. Because that old man will be you. He'll be the composite of everything you say, think and do--today, tomorrow. His mind will be set in a mold you have made by your attitudes. His heart will be turning out what you have been putting in.

Every little thought--every deed goes into this old man. He'll be exactly what you make him--nothing more--nothing less. It is up to you. You'll have no one else to credit or blame.

Every day in every way you are becoming more and more like yourself. Amazing--but true! You're getting to look more like yourself--think more like yourself--talk more like yourself. You're becoming yourself more and more.

Live only in terms of what you're getting out of life, respond to pain by building walls--the old man gets smaller, drier, harder, crabbier, more self-centered.

Live for God, use your pain to grow, open your life to others, think in terms of what you can give, your contribution to life, --the old man grows larger, softer, kindlier, greater.

A point to remember is that these things don't always tell immediately. But they'll show up sooner than you think. These little things--so unimportant now- attitudes, goals, ambitions, .....desires -- they're adding up inside -- where you can't see them. . . crystallizing in your heart and mind. Someday they'll harden into that old man--nothing will be able to soften or change them.

The time to take care of that old man is right now--today, this week, tonight. Examine his motives, attitudes, goals. Check up on him. Work him over while he's still plastic--still in a formative condition. For day comes awfully soon when it's too late. The hardness set in--worse than paralysis--character crystallizes, sets, jells. That's the finish.

Any wise businessman takes inventory regularly. His merchandise isn't half as important as he is. Better take a bit of personal inventory, too. We all need it and by keeping this check on yourself, you'll be much more likely to meet a splendid, old fellow at the proper time--the fellow you'd like to be.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Take now the trauma of your past. Do you see that God was using it to mold you. And each day you are growing more and more like yourself. Sure it is painful, sure it is tough. But are you building a wall, or are you going to throw yourself day after day after day at His feet, praising God for what has happened in your past? Praising him for the pain and confusion it brings you until you are broken and willing for him to use you. Until you are lying there with not a thing in the world except your total devotion to him saying

"use me, use me Oh God use me for your Glory."

And he puts you back together again piece by piece until He can use you.

 There's a very special song that two friends of mine wrote. Let me read you the lyrics

There are many many more lessons in this passage, and about this topic. Come talk to me.

If you are hurting from the past, if you are hurting now. Commit to me that you will tonight, get on your knees, praise God and then forgive the person who hurt you. Then start getting to work to break down those walls. Don't end up like the wrong kind of old man. Please don't. I don't want to. I will do my best to become softer kinder and more loving. It's not a one day thing. It's an every day thing, and in all things I will praise God. And most of all remember this. This is life. Don't wait for it to start. It has already started. Every hour you spend wasted in regret and revenge is lost forever. Gone in the mire of pain and hurt. This is life. We get no other on this earth. Don't waste it. Fix your life. Humble yourself before God. Face him now and tell him that despite all the pain you want to know what it was that you were to learn from it. That you always want to remain flexible and sensitive to his promptings. To being used by Him. Please do that.

Will you make that commitment today?

And remember you can't do it alone. Talk to a very close friend.

Let's pray.