A Divine Pause-Part Two

Hope you've had a great week and wonderful fourth of July! I got to spend it with three of my nieces and my brother and sister-in-law eating Mexican food, ice cream and watching fireworks. We couldn't have had a better event. I also wanted to thank each of you who left a comment about last weeks post. That lesson taught me a lot and really made me conscious of the places I've been called to serve and the new opportunities that I'm given each day to serve. I'm looking forward to what I get to take away from today too.

When we left Joseph he was serving Potiphar. He had been so faithful in that place of serving that he was promoted to the head of all Potiphar had. And everything Potiphar had was blessed because of Joseph. I mean everything, his house, and everything that was in his field. We're then told that he was an attractive person and fine looking. My generation would just say Joseph was "fine."

And that's where the next challenge for Joseph arrives. It comes packaged in a dress, high heels and oh, did I forget to mention, she's the bosses wife. Not a real good scenario. We're told that she doesn't just approach him a couple times tossing her womanly wiles at him. No, we're told that she comes to him day after day asking him to go to bed with her. The first time he comes he refuses her but also tells her "See here, with me in the house my master has concern about nothing, he has put all that he has in my care. He is not greater in this house than I am; nor has he kept anything from me except you, for you are his wife. How then can I do this great evil and sin against God?"

But that refusal wasn't enough for the shameless and persistent hussy. She daily was a perpetual attack on his purity. And then she finally saw an even greater opportunity. The house was completely empty. I'm sure with the amount of servants they had that was a rare moment. So, she seized it. When she thought no one was looking and Joseph came into the house to serve her husband the way he always had, she grabbed his coat. And asked him again, adamantly, "Sleep with me." This time he didn't even offer her words, he ran leaving his coat and everything. He didn't pat her hand and say, "Be a nice girl and go back to your husband." He didn't take her in his arms and say, "We really shouldn't be doing this." No, smart boy high-tailed it and took off!

My, my...what lessons to learn...what an example he has given us to follow.

God's "holy pause" will test our integrity. Sometimes in the area of purity, sometimes in the area of finances, sometimes in the area of honesty. But it will be tested. Why? Because how many casualties have we seen of Christian leaders who get to the top of their callings and their integrity destroys them when they get there. Heaven doesn't want casualties on the battlefield of integrity. So, he pauses us. He pauses us in the place between dream and fulfillment and tests our integrity.

Now God doesn't tempt us. We're told in the Bible that "He Himself tempts no one." But, write before that passage of scripture we're told, "Blessed, happy, to be envied is the man who is patient under trial and stands up under temptation, for when he has stood the test and been approved he will receive [the victor's] crown of life which God has promised to those who love Him." We're also told "be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience." He wasn't the spirit behind the bosses wife seduction. But He does allow the trying and testing of our faith. King David said in the psalms, "For You, O God, have proved us; You have tried us as silver is tried, refined and purified."

Some of us today might be standing in the place of real temptation. Maybe it's a physical temptation. Maybe a tempting of our purity. Maybe the man in the cubicle next door, or the woman in the house down the street pays far more attention to your needs then the spouse at home. Maybe what you do in secret when no one is looking you think doesn't matter, because we'll no one is looking.

Maybe your tempted in an area of integrity, integrity with your money, integrity at your job, integrity with your honesty. And each time we give into that temptation, thinking it's no big deal, the government doesn't know, our spouse won't ever find out, our employer won't ever know what we're doing, we're missing what Joseph got. Joseph didn't look at Ms. Floozy Potiphar and say "I can't do this to your husband." He saw something much bigger. He said, "I can't sin this way against God." Granted our failings in our area of purity leave a wake and hurt people who love and trusted us and have consequences of their own. Sometimes heartbreaking, life altering, family destroying, job losing, jail making, friend losing consequences. But deeper consequence than all of that is the chasm it places between us and heaven. Because the last place we want to be when impurity has been allowed to live actively in our lives and hearts is in the presence of a Holy God. And that is what the tempter of our soul is truly after. The devil of this world, and yes there is a real one, could care less if our family is torn apart. He could care less if our children have to be shuffled between one home and another. He could care less if you lose your job, land in jail or lose every friend you have in this world, what he is ultimately after is the chasm between our heart and God's.

The testing of our purity, of our integrity, is a place where God is desiring to create the character in us needed to fulfill the calling in us. If you've failed in that area, stop. Run. Flee. If you have to move to another department at work, quit your job, move to a new neighborhood, if you have to come clean in order to be free, do what you need to do. But stop. Did you know that there is not one temptation that you and I face that "is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience. But God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but He will always provide a way out-that means of escape to a landing place-that you may be capable and strong and powerful patiently to bear up under it."

I wish I could tell us one day there will be no more temptation. Resist it enough and we'll never be tempted with anything again. But this side of heaven that just isn't true. Because the enemy of our soul won't quit tempting us even when we get to the place where the dream we've been given is fulfilled. But if we fail when we get to that place the casualty count is much greater. That is why God allows the temptation during the pause. Because when we get to the place where the dream we've been given is fulfilled, God wants our integrity to be able to keep us there.