When God Calls, He Equips By Training – African Christian Authors

Paul in his second letter to Timothy tells him about scripture that; He says “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2Tim. 3:16,17). In this discussion section, we will make a case study of men whom God called to service and see how he equipped them for the tasks he set before them.

Equipping a person for a job is synonymous with training a person for service delivery. That calls for theory and practice to make the candidate ready for work. We know that so much thought, time, energy and capital is spent on training personnel. Just think of what it takes to train neurosurgeons, nuclear scientists, military think-tanks among many others before execution of operations. God equally trains his servants before launching them for mission. This preparation is necessary because God’s mission through his chosen servants must succeed. Some training is formal, others are informal, surprising and frustrating. In the training. God sharpens his servants for effective delivery of the missions that he commissions them to take. Using selected bible characters, we will see how God trained them to equip them for the tasks He planned for them.

Let us look at the life of Joseph. He was the son of Jacob with Rachel who named him Joseph because she said “May the Lord add to me another son” (Gen. 30:24). Joseph’s conception and birth are described as an answer to Rachel’s prayer by opening her womb and God taking away Rachel’s disgrace of childlessness. (Gen.30:22-23). In the bible, children born out of a mother’s prolonged barrenness perform special missions in God’s service. This creates an understanding that Joseph born after the mother’s experience of barrenness, is bound to do enterprises for God and God’s people.

What happens to Joseph in his early life becomes part of the training for tasks he accomplishes in his life later as a servant of God and man. At a young age of seventeen, Joseph was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons Zilpa, his father’s wives. He was the son of his father’s favorite wife. That could not endear him to his stepbrothers. He brought bad report about them to their father. Joseph had advantage over his brothers. The father loved him more than any of his other sons because he had been born to him in his old age. The father pampered him by making a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers observed that the father loved Joseph more than he loved them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

God’s training can include being raised in a hostile family environment. (Gen. 30:2-4). Joseph’s dreams about his relationships with his brothers intensified their hostility to him (vv. 5-8). His dreams went overboard because he dreamed that not only would his brothers bow before him but his father and mother would do the same. The old man rebuked the son. (Gen. 30:9-11). But the dreams were part of God’s communication to Joseph that God had a mission to accomplish through him. Joseph was practicing, unaware, as an intern in a location which God had carefully chosen. Joseph had troubles with his brothers and silently with his father because he talked about his dreams freely. He did not have the final picture of the work God had in store for him.

His brothers sold him as a slave to Midianite merchants who sold Joseph to Potiphar, an Egyptian captain of Pharaoh’s guard. Potiphar appointed him to take charge of all his household matters and everything he owned, except his wife. Potiphar prospered in the house and in the field. Potiphar entrusted everything to Joseph’s management. Things were running right until Potiphar’s wife fell in love with Joseph and demanded that he sleeps with her. Joseph’s integrity did not allow him to betray the trust Potiphar had put in him. He resisted, but Potiphar’s wife persisted. She caught him by his cloak and demanded he goes to bed with her. He escaped. When Potiphar came home, his wife reported to her husband that Joseph had tried to assault her. In anger, Potiphar took Joseph and threw him in prison. Remember that Potiphar was the captain of Pharaoh’s guard. He had authority and power to do that. Joseph must have felt frustrated and powerless, and perhaps angry at lies he did not need at this time of his life in a foreign land. A slave who becomes a prisoner in foreign land is always a weakling. This too was God’s school of apprentice for Joseph. Joseph was sure of one thing that belief and observing integrity in private and public life was something he could practice. Other areas were beyond his mandate.

For Joseph and his situations, dreams were means of communications that articulated things that would happen to him and to his contacts. In some cases, dreams articulated the scope he would be involved in; service for family, companions, and communities, whether local or international. In prison, Joseph interpreted two dreams, one of Pharaoh’s baker and the other of Pharaoh’s cupbearer. The baker was beheaded while the cupbearer was restored to his position just as Joseph had interpreted the two dreams. (Gen. 40:18-23). At the core, lies the calling for God’s servants to observe standard values and virtues whether one is in the home and family, or in the prison, royal palace, politics, business or industry.

Virtues and values cannot be imprisoned. They are free and liberating to all who need them and apply them. These virtues are character, integrity, truthfulness, honesty, fairness, goodwill and love for all. It was this cupbearer whom God used to tell Pharaoh that the dreams that had disturbed him could be interpreted by Joseph whom he has imprisoned. Joseph needed the prison experience to propel to the position of the Prime Minister of Egypt when he interpreted Pharaoh’s dream. (Gen. 41:41-43, 53-57). Joseph also brought to Egypt his father Jacob and his family and settled them in the best part of the land of Egypt. The hostilities his brothers had directed to him became nothing but sideshows as the family entered prosperity due to the kindness of Joseph who underwent stress, pain, embarrassment, and injustice to equip him for greater service than anybody would have imagined. Godly training must be allowed for the character of the person God wants to use. It was true for Joseph as it is true for us and will be true for God’s servants in the generations to come.