Divine Incubation

Have you ever felt that your life has been on pause, while others’ are on “fast-forward”? It can seem that way, when you’re faced with the same mountain you can’t seem to surmount, or the same nightmare you can’t seem to awaken from – the longer you climb, the higher the peak of the summit; the longer the night, the worse the nightmare becomes. Will this ever end, you ask? Others’ lives seem to have gone ahead; new exploits keep coming their way, new situations, changes – they’ve reinvented themselves over and over and over again – you almost can’t recognize them. But you – you seem to be right in the thick of your old woods – the ones you entered so long ago, with the hope of getting through them, at least –this is what the encouragement was at the beginning of it, right? Every time life hits us in the face with a horror, we’re told (and tell ourselves for assurance) – it won’t last forever; there is a light at the end of the tunnel – there is another side to this labyrinth of a forest…and as the weeks turn to months, months to years, your feet are aching as you trudge forward through the thicket, straining to see the end of it…but wait, haven’t I seen that tree before? That patch of grass looks familiar…Am I going in circles?

I wonder what Joseph was thinking when he was in that prison cell so many years. The cupbearer, who had received his assistance, had been exonerated and redeemed…and Joseph, completely forgotten, lost in the thick of his “forest” in that dark, damp corridor of Egyptian filth. Prisoners in and out, officers come and go, and Joseph, with a fading dream in his heart, stuck; life on pause, on an endless climb to the topless insurmountable “summit” of his trial.

“But while Joseph was there in the prison, the LORD was with him…and gave him success in whatever he did.” (Gen. 39:20;23)

Imagine that! While Joseph climbed that mountain without an apex, he was not alone – the LORD was climbing it with him! The Lord of Hosts, the Everlasting Father, the Creator of the Universe, the Word that Speaks and it is so – was WITH Joseph to climb that mountain without a summit, and to conquer that, which was unconquerable! Just imagine – the One Who IS, and because He IS, other things come into being – His mere Presence shapes the atmosphere, in which He dwells! The Light in the Darkness – that shatters the impenetrable and recreates it into something it never was! The Hope of the Hopeless, the Shedder of a red Blood that washes and cleans the blackest of black into the purest white! The Rainbow Painter, Who’s imagination has not limitation – Who can speak into YOUR situation and transform its bitterness into sweet honey! Can you imagine that Ally, walking with you through YOUR labyrinth?

How do you know when the Invisible One is with you in your darkest hour and in your most desperate moment of need? For Joseph – with life on pause, he was still increasing. How? He was fashioned and educated in the Egyptian arts and sciences – learning the system and academia of the most powerful and wealthiest empire in the known world! He was gifted in administration and leadership, and allowed to hone and sharpen that gift in two separate organizations on the opposite ends of the sociological and cultural spectrum, learning to use all aspects of varying resources, situations, caste systems, and people groups. All of this training was going somewhere, even if he himself was going “nowhere.” His “paused” life, though motionless on the surface, was not a “still frame” on destiny, not imprisonment on his purpose – rather, it was his “divine incubation.” The Incubator, Who accompanied him through the entire nightmare, was up to something spectacular, that even the dreamer himself couldn’t have dreamed.

And finally, FINALLY, when the time was ripe –

“Thus (Pharaoh) put (Joseph) in charge of the whole land of Egypt.” (Gen. 40:41)

In the briefest of moments, SUDDENLY! A new reality was born! The topless mountain became the floor, and the nightmare gave way to a new day. It was over – the forest cleared, the labyrinth passed, and there, on the other side of terror, was the life, for which the hike up the mountain and the walk through the forest prepared the traveler to live…HIS life to really LIVE! All the while his life was on pause, Joseph was being made ready, incubated, fashioned, equipped to SEIZE and CONQUER a life that the Author had written for him to enjoy since the beginning of time! Joseph’s pause transformed him into a ruler destined to literally rule the known world for the rest of his life on this earth! Wow. What a pause was his!

Imagine what your “pause” is accomplishing for you now? Yes – life is moving along for others around you, and your nightmare is steadfast and unshakeable, that labyrinth incessantly suffocating around you, that mountain ever looming above you – but this pause on your progress is only a pause on the surface, for beneath it – shaping and fashioning- destiny is taking place – you may not see it; you might not even feel it; but the Incubator is working, and in the breath of a moment – you TOO will emerge into the new reality, in which you were destined to live.

“The LORD was with Joseph and he prospered.” (Gen. 39:1)