Hope in the Midst of Struggle

Practical Theology for Women post:  Fruitful in the Land of My Affliction

Fruitful in the land of my affliction. I've written about this phrase before. It comes from from Genesis 41:52, where Joseph names his second son after years of bondage in Egypt which led to his becoming the second in command to Pharaoh.

The name of the second he called Ephraim, "For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction."

Joseph intrigues me, yet I resist his story at times as well. I have heard a number of sermons over the years from his life. He often becomes a moral lesson – be like Joseph when you are sexually tempted and unjustly accused, and God will exalt you as He did Joseph. I strongly resist that view of the life of Joseph. God's not conforming me to the image of Joseph. He's conforming me to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). Joseph's story is powerful because it reveals God, not because it reveals Joseph. My circumstances will be distinctly different than Joseph's, but my God is the same.

Yet there is much to learn from Joseph's story, particularly of our God. The naming of Joseph's son is one such place. Many thoughts hit me as I meditate on why Joseph named his son Ephraim (which sounds like the Hebrew word for fruitful). First, it's counterintuitive. Joseph was fruitful in the very place that should have sucked the life out of him. That paradox intrigues me. But, second, I resist the name, because I don't want to be fruitful in the land of my affliction. I want God to END my affliction, and then I want to be fruitful in the beautiful land I imagined would be God's best for His children. However, like Joseph, I am powerless to end whatever troubles plague me, and I get impatient waiting for God to move. It is in those moments that I wrestle with God, "How can I do what You have called me to do in THESE circumstances?!"

Once I calm down and take an objective look at Scripture, it finally hits me that no one in Scripture seems to be very fruitful EXCEPT in the land of their affliction. In fact, you can argue from Scripture that suffering, affliction, and death to self are essential to God's plan for fruitfulness in His children.

John 12:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

I have situations in my life that plague me, that I would desperately love to see changed. God tells me to pray for His will to be done, for His name to be hallowed, and for His kingdom to come. I long for those things to come about in my home, in my neighborhood, in my church, and in the larger Body of Christ. But in the midst of waiting for the affliction to end and God's kingdom to come, I am blessed by God's story in the life of Joseph, and I meditate on what it looks like to be fruitful in the very places from which I would most like to be delivered.  Joseph's story reminds me that affliction doesn't end the possibility of fruitfulness but may instead be the very thing that prepares the ground for "fruit that remains."

John 15:16 NAS "You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain ... "

I hope you will believe with me today that God has a plan to bear fruit in our lives not just despite the affliction and struggles we wish would leave our lives but through those very struggles, using them as the actual conduit for this fruitfulness. God uses the hardest parts of the story of believer after believer in Scripture to bear beautiful fruit for His name.  This is His calling card.  It is the God of Joseph's story that causes me to hope in the midst of struggle.