Don't Make Matters Worse

Learned my Lesson

I told you yesterday what happened to me when I was 17.

I was a punk. I bragged. I made my brothers mad.

I realized I had some responsibility in that.

I learned some things.

A bad situation. Dad obviously favored me over them. I made a bad situ worse by bragging about it.

What happened next.

Potiphar’s House

My brothers sold me into slavery. And the traders took me to Egypt.

That was the most powerful nation in the world, then.

Kind of like America now.

They sold me to an army officer. We have generals, colonels, and sergeants. They called him Potiphar.

I’m in Egypt and I’m a slave.

Potiphar owns me. He bought me like you buy a candy bar.

He could make me do anything.

Clearly, God was w/ me too.

I was able to figure things out no one else could. I was able to do things no one else could.

Potiphar saw that and promoted me to be the boss of all the slaves in his house.

And, I paid special attention to his. She was pretty!

But, I just wanted to please my boss, Potiphar.

He took good care of me. So I wanted to take good care of who he cared about most, his wife!

I made sure she had her favorite food. I brought special snacks. Made sure her clothes were washed and she had her favorite stuff to wear.

Everything was going great.

Until one day, Potiphar’s wife did something to me, but blamed me for it and I got in a lot of trouble.

Potiphar’s wife

She called me in to room to bring in her laundry

Basket like you mom or dad brings the clean clothes to you.

She grabbed me and tried to kiss me. Can you believe it?

I am so torn!

She is beautiful. And rich!

But I knew God didn’t want me to do that.

And my boss, that’s his wife.

I had a great thing going and I didn’t want to mess it up.

I was so tempted. But if I did it, it would mess me up.

I’d like to think I had learned after I made matters so much worse w/ by brothers.

She’s not used to being told no. I had to.

I’m already a slave. No freedom to go and do anything I wanted to do.

But I was in charge of all the slaves in the house. It was the best of a bad situation.

I got away from her, but she grabbed my coat, tore it off me.

My brothers messed me up b/c of a coat. She messed up b/c of a coat.

She Messed Me Up

She was so mad at me.

Potiphar came home from his army job. She lied.

She lied about what happened. She said I tried to kiss her.

Made up this whole story...

She showed him my coat she kept saying I took it off and left it there when she pushed me away.

Potiphar was mad at me.

He believed his wife, not me. I suppose he should. He’s got to live w/ her. Glad I don’t.

He not only fired me, but sent me to prison.

Not just any old jail, but the worst of the worst jails.

It was bad.

How much worse could it get?

You’d think a nasty place like this, God wouldn’t be there.

But He was. He was w/ me the whole time.

Here’s how I know.

God’s in Jail, too

Just like things went w/ Potiphar, I was able to do things for the guards no one else could do.

I could figure things out. They figured out they could trust me.

And the head guy in the jail put me in charge of all the other prisoners.

I got special privileges.

It was jail.

The food was horrible.

But I got first pick to get the least horrible.

And, I got a little more than the other guys.

Here’s the deal. When you’re tempted to do something bad, you know it’s bad, you don’t have to do it.

I was in a bad place. But I would have made things much worse by giving into temptation.

Do the right thing always, even if it’s the hard thing. B/C if you don’t, you’ll get in even more trouble. And it’s not worth it.