Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, 7 and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”
8 But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. 9 No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” 10 And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.
11 One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. 12 She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.
13 When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, 14 she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. 15 When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
16 She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. 17 Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. 18 But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”
19 When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. 20 Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.
Dear God, I heard a story three days ago from a friend who manages a large chain. He said that he has had to fire several people, and he was going to fire yet another one later that day. Why? Because this one woman kept having sex with different coworkers in the office at night. And she was married. Apparently, she had done this at least five times, and what she told the HR person was, “We start drinking and then when I drink I get horny.” Wow. Well, there is something about this story that reminds me of that. It’s hard to imagine that someone would do that. And I am sure that these different men, who have now lost their jobs, would not normally have instigated the behavior (maybe one or two of them would have, but not all five), but they were lured into it by someone who obviously has issues.
I can see where Potiphar’s wife must have had issues too. Maybe she hated her husband. Maybe he cheated on her or had other wives and didn’t give her much attention. Maybe he was great, but she just wanted Joseph. Whatever the case may be, Joseph was able to do something that the five men in my friend’s business didn’t do—resist temptation.
What kinds of temptations do I face? I don’t work in a sexually-charged environment, so I wouldn’t say that is an issue. I guess I am seeing one of my weaknesses coming out this week, and it is in avoiding conflict. We had something happen between a staff member and a volunteer this week that wasn’t good, and both were in the wrong. Now, how do I handle this conflict constructively? I suppose if I were a different type of person I could just blow in and challenge both of them, but that isn’t my personality. So I have been mentally laboring over what to do in order to have the least amount of conflict in this situation. It is my biggest weakness as a manager, and it really frustrates me.
Father, help me to lead this place the way you need it to be led. Help me to lead my staff and volunteers. Help me to lead, to a certain extent, the board. Help me to have vision for our patients. Help me to also lead the local doctors when it comes to charitable services for our patients. Healthcare is getting harder and harder to figure out for people, and I am really starting to hit the ceiling of what I know to do to help people. So help me to navigate all of this with your power, wisdom, and love.
Emails to God 