Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Genesis 37-39
Key Verse
Genesis 38:9 — “And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.”
Devotional Thought
What do you do when the bottom falls out—when faithfulness is repaid with betrayal and purity with a prison cell? The question is not theoretical. It meets us in May, when spring is supposed to feel like a fresh start, yet some of us are walking through a season where everything has gone wrong. Genesis 37–39 shows us a young man named Joseph who knew exactly what that felt like. His own brothers stripped him of his coat of many colours, threw him into an empty pit, and sold him to Ishmeelite traders for twenty pieces of silver. They dipped the coat in goat’s blood and let their father Jacob believe a wild beast had torn him apart. Joseph arrived in Egypt a slave in Potiphar’s house—and there, remarkably, the LORD was with him.
That phrase is the quiet refrain of these chapters. Joseph prospered in Potiphar’s house, and Potiphar saw that the LORD made all he did to prosper. But prosperity in Egypt did not exempt Joseph from temptation. Potiphar’s wife cast her eyes on him and pressed him day by day, and Joseph refused—not merely because it would wrong his master, but because it would be “a great wickedness, and sin against God.” He fled, leaving his garment in her hand, and she used that garment to lie about him. The man who kept his integrity lost his freedom. And yet verse 21 repeats the refrain: “But the LORD was with Joseph.”
Notice how God’s presence did not spare Joseph from suffering, but it never left him in it. The LORD gave him favour with the keeper of the prison, and even there, in a place where the king’s prisoners were bound, Joseph was entrusted with everything. Between these chapters sits the strange, tangled story of Judah and Tamar—a reminder that God was quietly at work in a family full of sin and sorrow, weaving even their failures into His purposes. The dreams of chapter 37 looked dead and buried. They were not. God was not finished.
Perhaps this spring finds you in a pit of your own—a betrayal, a false accusation, a door that slammed shut. The lesson of Joseph is not that faithfulness guarantees comfort. It is that the LORD is with His people in the pit, in the prison, and in the palace alike. The story is not over. The God who observed the saying, who prospered Joseph in slavery and in prison, is still writing the ending.
Reflection
- Where in your life has faithfulness seemed to cost you rather than reward you, and can you trace the LORD’s presence with you even there?
- Joseph refused temptation because he saw sin first as an offense against God, not merely against his master—how does that perspective change the way you face the temptations that press you “day by day”?
Prayer
LORD God of Joseph, we come to You as those who have known pits and prisons of our own. Thank You that Your presence does not depend on our circumstances being pleasant; You were with Joseph in Potiphar’s house and in the king’s prison, and You have promised never to leave nor forsake us. Give us grace to refuse sin, not merely because of what it costs us, but because it grieves You. When we are falsely accused or unjustly treated, help us to keep our integrity and to trust Your timing. Remind us that You are still weaving Your purposes, even through what we cannot understand. In the name of Jesus, Amen.