As I was preparing for a series of talks on the life of Joseph, I was quite intrigued by the events of his life. He seems to have been a young man raised to love God and His law. Troubles begin in his life when he has dreams that were indicative of a promising future blessed by God. As he relates these dreams to his family (you can determine the wisdom of these choices) they become a little disgruntled. This coupled with Joseph’s favored position with daddy Jacob, he experiences disfavored status with his brothers. This jealousy on the part of the brothers almost leads to murder (they wanted to do it, but Reuben did not allow it). So he ends up in Egypt as a slave, upon which time God begins to make Joseph’s favored status materialize. He is placed in charge of Potiphar’s stuff, then ends up in jail because of Potiphar’s ungodly (and rejected) wife. [Interesting to see how Potiphar’s pagan wife did not act that much differently than Joseph’s brothers who were supposed to be God-fearing.] This results in jail time for Joseph (more than 2 years). Then God uses Joseph’s dreams again to bring him to second in command in Egypt.
In all of this, Joseph honors God. What a man of God. He definitely could have used his power to gain revenge. Quite an example this Joseph.