Genesis 41:1: Can't We Speed Things Up Here? (Or, Two Years is Too Long)

“Second fiddle! Without a doubt. I can get any number to play first violin, but to find one who plays second violin with as much enthusiasm is a real problem.  Of course, second French horn or second flute would be similar.  And yet, if no one plays second fiddle, we have no harmony.” - Leonard Bernstein, when asked the most difficult instrument to play.

Jesus challenges how we work as an employee. Under workplace stress, the character of Jesus in us comes out...or not. For the second time in software engineering career, I am a manager. I didn't do so well the first time, several years ago, and my manager removed that part of my job. Many times I have reflected on what happened and asked God to teach me. This is the second time he's asked me to do something a second time, but more on that another day.

God challenged me, first, to be a good worker under for a manager. He did this in my roles as a senior engineer and a church leader. You get along with some; you don't get along with others. Sometimes you get to choose who you report to and then regret it. Other times you don't get to choose who you report to and then find it was a blessing. One thing is true: Under God's superintending hand, each has taught me something God wanted me to hear.

Also, during this period, I found a book, Leading from the Second Chair, that helped to clarify my thinking about what it means to support a leader or manager in both church and non-church settings. In particular, it noted that many of the great characters of the Bible were not leaders, but rather, second-in-commands. Joseph, Daniel, Mordecai, Deborah, Esther, and Nehemiah, for example. Often, they were advisers to people who were not God-fearing, but God put them there anyway.

One incident that I have often reflected upon in the Bible was the life of Joseph:

Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. The Lord was with Joseph (Gen. 39:1-2a) 

[Potiphar] burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. (Gen 39:20a)

Joseph didn't have a lot of choices when it came to bosses. After being carried to Egypt by slave traders, he found himself with a pretty good job with Potiphar (Gen. 39). Then things go south and he gets put in prison and he finds himself in a pretty good job working for the prison warden.

But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. (Gen. 39:20b-21)

While he is there, he makes friends with two important members of the household of Pharaoh, the baker and the cupbearer, who were out of favor because of some court scandal. Poisoning was a occupational hazard for the royal family and these two were at the center of the drama.

Joseph becomes friends with them. While his job in the jail under the warden is ok, he wonders if maybe he could transfer to Pharaoh's department or, maybe, get a parson and job recommendation. So he talks with his friends, but one dies and "The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him. When two full years had passed..." - (Gen. 40:23-41:1)

Why two years? That question has teased me. Here are my reflections:

1. Those were two years with God's presence. In his time in Potiphar's house and his time in prison, the Bible states clearly that God was with Joseph. God is present in these rough times as slave and prisoner, just as much as He is in the better times. Joseph himself reflected later, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Gen. 50:20) Whatever my role and whoever I report to, God is in the role with me. 
2. Those two years were practice. Joseph started as a bad manager. His father Jacob delegated authority to Joseph, which he handled poorly. He alienated his brothers and offended his mother and father (Gen. 37:10-14). God led him through his own house, Potiphar's house and then the prison before leading him before Pharaoh. He failed at home (brothers), then managed small (Potiphar's house and prison) and then managed big (Pharaoh & Egypt). He failed with his gifts at home (dreams), used his gifts small (cupbearer/baker) and then used them big (Pharaoh & Egypt). My current role is training for who I will be tomorrow, and what God will do tomorrow.
3. Those two years were not about Joseph. They were about God. We groan with the weight of the wait. But it is not about me or you. It is about God. He is always at work. He places us in a wait-and-grow mode while he orchestrates all according to his will and then, when it is safe for us to enter his plan, he green-lights our next step. Maybe it is about your boss, or your company, or you colleagues, or the community, or your industry--not about you at all--and he is placing you in a safe place, knowing he can trust you, while He makes his big move. 

There is an element of patience to all of this: the discipline of prospering-in-place, growing-while-slowing, blooming-where-planted. We can miss the benefits of working under our current manager (no matter who they are) if we are too busy longing for the next. There is a time for change, but is it for the right reason.

“Too many leaders focus all their energy on moving to the next chair as quickly as possible, and they miss the opportunity to develop their gifts in the current chair.” - Mike Bonem, Leading from the Second Chair

So, as a manager for the second time, I appreciate workers who have that patience. One day, they may surpass me. Great. But we can learn together while they are here.

Psalm 118:23-24: Make Not My Day, But Yours

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad. - Psalm 118:23-24

As I prayed this morning, this verse came to my mind. We are walking into His day, not our day. He made it. We enter into what he has already prepared. If we could glimpse a view of today the way that God views it, it would be "marvelous in our eyes". It would be unexpected and improbable.

We are not creating our future, we are discovering a future. This morning, from the other end of today, God calls, "Come, follow me!"

Hebrews 7:19: We'll Come, not Welcome

As I was sitting on the flight back to San Francisco, I prayed to make God welcome in the airplane with me. Then, with ironic insight, I realized that I should instead thank him for welcoming me. He was already there, and he was inviting me into his plan for that place and those people. We step into the stream that has been long flowing.

While I was trying to invite God into my daily life, he was inviting me into his kingdom plan. Without realizing it, I was changing my spiritual life, into a "Come, join me." But Jesus was saying, "Come, follow me!" on the path he has scouted out in advance (Eph. 2:10). My "Please, help me" to God during the day was really an attempt to re-orbit that day around me-a universe in which the significance of events was measured by their impact on me--a plan where he joins me.

It dawned on me that instead, I join him, not vice-versa. It is his banquet. It is his table that he has prepared. It is his presence that we come into. It is him calling. The Bible says, "But now we have confidence in a better hope, through which we draw near to God." (Heb. 7:19) Trust that God's hope for the day is better than mine. That God's table is better than mine. Trust that God's flight plan is better than mine.

Wherever I am, God is there. He has a plan for that moment; you can join (2 Tim. 2:21) and, by sharing his purpose, you are approaching God with confidence. "Come close to God, and God will come close to you." (James 4:8a)

Isaiah 29:16: Role Reversal

You turn things upside down,as if the potter were thought to be like the clay!
Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, “You did not make me”?
Can the pot say to the potter, “You know nothing”? - Isaiah 29:16

The modern era is characterized by men and women who would like to regard God as their peer rather than as their parent. In doing so, it gives them the right to bring every decision of God into question. "Who is God," they might ask, "that he should have the right to decide what is best for me? I don't like the choices being made on my behalf. Give me the data and, for better or worse, let me work out my own choices to the best of my ability and I will bear the consequences."

The raised fist of defiance, or the sly, passive, quietly doing my own thing--each is a radical departure from how people have traditionally viewed the divine. We have walled off heaven, or considered it irrelevant. As a result, our imagination has become stunted and our view of God has been diminished so much that we can only view Him as a smarter, more powerful, more benign but ultimately still limited version of ourselves. As C.S. Lewis said in God in the Dock:

"The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are quite reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge; if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock."

The truth is, God does not owe me a defense or an apology. It may upset me that he uses his power so willfully, without consulting me. I may accuse Him of violating the very moral strictures that He places on me. In the end, I must confess that the moral calculus of it all is too complex for me to be God. I must acknowledge I can't put together a reasonable defense of my own behavior that would satisfy even my conscience. I must trust that God knows what in the heck He is doing and that He truly had my best in mind when he sent Jesus and called me to follow.

Colossians 1:16-17: God of the Next 30 Minutes

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” - Abraham Kuyper
There is a time in the morning that is mine. It lasts from about 5:30AM to about 6:00AM, when I get up to start breakfast for the family. In about 30 minutes, my wife will come down and make lunch and in about 45 my daughter will make her brief appearance before rushing out the door to school. The truth is, it doesn't really take me 30 minutes most days. But it is quiet and, these days, it is relatively dark and my brain has a chance to kickstart and my heart is calm.

I have learned over the years of doing this that certain things don't work during this time. For example, I can't look at my phone, because, inevitably, there will be an e-mail from our overseas office that either dominates my (very limited at that time in the morning) thinking or irritates me (I'm not quite as flexible).

I'd like to say that I was a spiritual giant and pulled out my Bible and prayed for that 1/2 hour. I do read, sometimes. I do pray, sometimes. Mostly, though, I enjoy it. The night shift is over. God has been at work for the past several hours, while I was sleeping. The world did not fall apart in my absence. His mercies are renewed, per usual. My mind wanders a bit.

He is still in charge for the next 30 minutes also. That's when other sleepy people show up, hungry, searching for homework and clean clothes. Then the conversations, the calendar, the e-mails and text messages crowd in with the litany of the day's commitments. But if I start with that 30 minutes, I find that the God of that calm is also the God of the chaos that follows. There is nothing that surprises Him; nothing that worries Him; nothing where He wonders, "What is to be done?" He is God of the next 30 minutes. And the 30 minutes after that.

"...all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians 3:16b-17

It doesn't always work. Beautiful mornings shipwrecked by the worries of tomorrow or the hurt feelings of yesterday. When that happens, I look back with regret on that quiet time. But that regret is not a bad thing: it is a reminder of what could be. It is a longing for God to extend His peace over the rest of my time. So, many days I remember to invite him along. "God, will you come with me to X" or "God, will you join me in this conversation with Y" I'm still figuring it out, but I figure that if I let him be God of the next 30 minutes, maybe I can also let him be God of the 30 minutes after that.