Lesson 21 - Slave and Prisoner:
 Performance under Pressure
 Read Genesis 39-40 - www.bible.com/bible/59/gen.39

*How do you react when you are treated unjustly?
*How do you feel when you do everything you can to serve God well, only to have the bottom drop out of your life?

Joseph faced such difficulties after he became a slave in Egypt. He had been bought by a high official in the government – a part of God’s plan as we will see in the story.

But he had sunk from the favored son of his father, to a slave in a country he’d never even visited. In chapter 37 we learned Joseph was only 17 years old when his brothers sold him as a slave. His brothers were probably at least 4 to 6 years older than he.

Joseph, however, did not allow the bad things that had happened to him to take his mind away from God. Somewhere in his journey to Egypt or maybe when he’d been sold to Potiphar, he determined he would not lose his connection with God. He determined with God’s help he would not walk away from the things of God he had learned from his father. He ran from the temptation Potiphar’s wife set before him.

We often think that putting Joseph in prison was unjust; but since the most often-used punishment for the thing Mrs. Potiphar had accused Joseph of doing was death for a slave, the fact that Potiphar placed him in prison where he personally could make sure he would be cared for well speaks of mercy. That didn’t mean prison was a comfortable place to be for Joseph.

*How do you respond when you are unjustly accused?

God never leaves anything to chance, and He didn’t do so with Joseph either. The arrest of the king’s cook and cup-bearer were exactly what God would use to place Joseph into the palace, but even so, Joseph still waited for 3 years for that to happen.

*How do you feel when God has you wait for something He has promised you? Do you spend your waiting-time complaining, or as an opportunity to learn what God wants you to learn in preparation for that time?