When life gives you lemons, make
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When life turns ugly, sour and difficult to digest it’s hard to think that God has the power to “work into all things for the good of those who love him” Romans 8: 28. Doubt and anxiety might want to take control over us but that’s the moment when we must lift up our eyes and trust that our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

No one is exempt from loss, sickness, financial or emotional crisis, but understanding that every trial comes wrapped with a purpose is life- changing. Imagine if your life was all sort out without challenges ahead of you, how boring would it be? At the end it all comes down to trusting God and extracting the substance of every situation to jump into the next season of our lives.

The first person I think of when talking about making a good lemonade is Joseph, I can’t help but to look back at his life and see how determined he was to make the best of every situation; he always found a reason to shine. The book of Genesis narrates Joseph’s life from the moment he was born as the long time desired son of Jacob and Rachel, until his final days in Egypt as one of the most important men of the time. Becoming the second man in command would not come easy to Joseph, he was tested in all ways possible but never gave in.

Joseph overcame many obstacles through out his journey, but we must dig a little more into his background to understand his family crisis and how that created a Domino Effect in his life. He was the fruit of a painful love story that ultimately triumphed by persevering, waiting, and learning to work hard for the important things in life. Jacob (Joseph’s father) dearly loved Rachel, but had to marry her oldest sister Leah because he was deceived by Laban (Jacob’s father-in-law), who had previously given him permission to marry Rachel but then changed plans on their wedding night. Laban justified his actions by saying it was the costume of the time to first give in marriage the oldest daughter, long story short, he ended up working for Laban a total of 14 years to be able to marry the one he truly loved, Rachel. So there was a real family conflict! Leah always felt rejected, but God gave her grace to have children and bring joy to the family, meanwhile Rachel couldn’t bare any children. Many years later God heard Rachel’s prayer and opened her womb to bring Joseph into the world.

It’s almost logical to imagine that Joseph grew up surrounded by love, but also he had to deal with a lot of envy from his older brothers who would always find occasions to tease him. Everything changed for Joseph from the moment he shared a dream of greatness he had that included his father and brothers, a dream that was not well received since it portrayed him ruling over his entire family. Putting up with envy from co-workers, or even friends is frustrating but having your own family turned against you is discouraging and almost unbelievable to think that your own blood would hate so much to plan a murder…Well! this is exactly what Joseph had to overcome, his brothers tried to killed him but they ended up changing their minds leaving him in a pit where he was later found by strangers and taken to Egypt as a slave, while in the eyes of his family he is counted for dead, gone for ever, without even a chance to say goodbye.

Now in Egypt things get tough because Joseph is sold as a slave to an important man named Potifar, away from his family and homeland Joseph becomes so good at what he does in Potifar’s house that he gains trust and position…here is exactly where Joseph starts squeezing his first lemons. It’s evident that being in command of Potifar’s house is nothing close to the dreams he had, but deep inside he understood he was being molded in the potter’s hand.

How important is it to change our perspective? I would tell you right now to take your eyes off the problem, stop wasting your time worrying, and instead you find ways to be productive and focused, this will actually help you to get moving forward. This is a good piece of advice we get from this particular moment of Joseph’s life, understand where you are in your process, let God work on you, don’t get depressed and frustrated and discover hidden strengths! You might not be where you want to be, but changing your perspective will help your ease the process–you might even end up enjoying it in ways you never imagined, you never know, you’d be surprised.

Everything was going well for Joseph until Potifar’s wife put her eyes on him–this is the beginning of the end of a season. One day she harassed Joseph, he walked away from temptation, but was thrown in jail for Potifar believed his wife.  At this point I would not hesitate but to ask God what is it that I’m doing so wrong? Why things have to always end up bad for me? Is this even fair? After all I’m innocent, and this is what I get for being faithful to you? What about the dream you gave me? Questioning would be the most logical thing to do at the moment, but we never find Joseph driven by deception or injustice, again we see an example of man who truly trusts God, what a great lesson for us! Even in jail, he shines, he prospers and he is put as head of other prisoners.

A common reaction we see when we are being tested is to blame God and walk away from his presence, when it must be ALL the contrary, it’s so crucial to stay tuned with God and learn to listen to his voice and follow his directions. Here we learn another great lesson from Joseph, what ever it is that we do, we must do it for the Glory of God with excellence! The one little thing you do, a job well done, a wise advice, or a good strategy might be your ticket out of a situation.

God gave Joseph another dream with two prisoners, he shared his dream and its interpretation with the two men, two different endings, a good and a bad ending, one man will live, another one will die. The dream came true, the king forgave one life and sentenced another one. The prisoner whose life was forgiven had promised Joseph to speak to the the king about him to help him get out of jail, time passed but he never spoke in his behalf.  Yet another broken promise you might think! But there is a perfect timing for everything and God knows when we are ready to receive the fulfillment of a promise.

Learning how to wait with patience is part of the process, otherwise we can derailed from our purpose! One thing we see in common among many men and women in the Bible is that at some point in their lives they were put on hold in the waiting room. Unfortunately those who got tired of waiting had to deal with the consequences, Abraham and Sarah are good examples of rushing into the promise and kind of trying to help God, eventually it all worked out for them but still suffered more for pressing on the accelerator.

Did God forget about Joseph? Did he lied about his future? Why making him wait so long? Will he rot in prison? God never forgets his promises, he never lies, and everything works for our own good, He knows we are a beautiful work of art in the make and there are things we need to work in ourselves. Joseph is forgotten but not for so long. One day the king had a strange dream, which made him so troubled and anxious that he consulted all the known wise men for advice and interpretation but no one could come up with the real meaning.