Today's Daily Lesson is from Genesis 37:
"23 So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. 24 And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it."
Joseph was the favorite of Jacob's 12 sons and Jacob singled Joseph out with a special ornamental robe of many colors. Joseph was glad to wear the robe and be the favored son. He had dreams of his own preeminence among his brothers, and was so cocksure of himself that he had no shame in telling his brothers that he had dreamed one day they would all bow down to him.
Disgusted and envious they to each other, "Come, let us kill this dreamer," and then stripped him of his robe and threw him into a pit where they left him for dead.
At some point in life everyone must be stripped of their robe. We must come to terms with the fact that the world does not fawn over us in the same way our parents did. We must learn that our own dreams of success oftentimes threaten those around us. We must learn that the robe is both a blessing and also a curse - that the potentiality others dress us in is and is not good for our soul. We must be stripped of the robe. Life must bring us to the bottom of a pit from which we ourselves under our own power and persuasion cannot climb out.
Yesterday, a friend gave me a Richard Rohr quote I had never heard. "In the second half of life success has nothing more to teach us." Joseph, though still young, has entered into the second half of life. It is the half of life where the robe of favored sonship is replaced with rags of slavery, where visions of grandeur are replaced with the slim hope for survival, and where the only way out of the pit is from on high.
If you are in that place, then do not despair. It must be so; for our defeat is necessary for our salvation.
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