PURPOSEFUL LIVING

written by Hershey H. Friedman, Ph.D.

Jacob

Jacob was one of the patriarchs, a grandson of Abraham, and father of the twelve tribes. His major mistake as a leader of the clan was to designate Joseph as his successor when Joseph was still young and somewhat irresponsible. Jacob gave Joseph the coat of many colors, a symbol of leadership, when his son was only 17-years old. Joseph, however, was immature and reported his brothers’ shortcomings to his father (Genesis 37:2). Needless to say, his brothers did not like him.

Jacob was prescient and recognized the potential of Joseph. Indeed, Joseph would eventually prove to be not only a good clan leader, but would become one of the great leaders of Egypt — one who would get Egypt through seven years of famine. Unfortunately, at this point in his life, Joseph was not yet a good judge of human nature and further aroused the envy and hatred of his brothers by recounting his dreams to them. Relating a dream in which the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bow to him — a dream that was not very hard to interpret — infuriated Joseph’s brothers who made it clear that they would never accept him as a ruler over them. Joseph was sold as a slave by his brothers and did not become a leader of Egypt until he was 30-years old.

The lesson that can be learned from Jacob’s mistake is not to designate a successor prematurely and not to show favoritism to one child. It usually takes time for people to recognize and appreciate the qualities of others. A successor has to be groomed. With time, Joseph would have matured and his siblings might have accepted him as the leader of the clan, or at the very least Joseph’s siblings would have been unable to forcefully sell him into slavery. Sometimes successors have to be prepared for positions of authority. In fact, Joshua was groomed for 40 years by Moses before being designated as Moses’ successor by God (Numbers 27:16-23). Joseph’s mistake was in bragging about his dreams. Little good can come from making other people envious of oneself.

Well, don’t pluck the fruit before it is ripe. Life lessons need time and there are no short cuts to character development.  Take time to grow and mature, otherwise we are going to inconvenience many along the way.