A pit is hardly where anyone expects to find themselves. It is dark, cold, and when you are inside one, it is difficult to imagine anything beyond its walls. Yet when we talk about Joseph, we tend to remember how his story ended before considering everything he had to endure to get there.
Joseph ended up in a pit because of his own brothers' jealousy. He had not given up on his dreams or abandoned what he believed God had shown him. His circumstances had simply taken a turn he could not control. Between those dreams and the reality before him lay a distance he could hardly have understood from the bottom of that pit.
The interesting thing is that we know his whole story. We know he eventually arrived in Egypt, rose to a position of authority, and was able to help his family during the famine. When we read his story from the end, it is easy to connect the events and make sense of the journey. But Joseph did not have that perspective while he was living through it.
Neither do we.
When we go through a difficult season, we rarely know what place it will occupy in our story. We can make good decisions and still find ourselves in unjust circumstances. We can work hard, pray, and do what we believe is right without seeing things improve when we expect them to. And when reality contradicts the hopes we have held on to, we do not always know how to reconcile the two.
Perhaps that is why we are so quick to look for an explanation. We need to believe that our pain is leading somewhere, that the waiting has a purpose, and that one day we will be able to look back and understand why we had to go through it.
But there is a problem with thinking this way: we begin to measure the value of what we experience by the outcome we hope to obtain.
Not everything that looks like an ending is one, but we do not have to turn every wound into the beginning of an extraordinary story to acknowledge that it deserves to be taken seriously.
What happened to Joseph was an injustice. The possibility that God could work through that experience did not make his brothers' betrayal acceptable or erase his suffering. Recognizing that pain does not have to define our entire lives is one thing. Pretending that faith requires us to find an immediate silver lining in everything that hurts us is quite another.
There is something else in Joseph's story that we often overlook when we talk about his dreams and his arrival at the palace: years of slavery, false accusations, and imprisonment stood between those two moments. He did not go straight from the pit to a position of authority. His story included long stretches of time when he could not know what would happen next.
And that complicates the version of the story we so often tell.
We like stories with happy endings because they allow us to make sense of suffering. The protagonist faces a crisis, proves their strength, and eventually receives what once seemed lost. The ending makes everything fall into place. But while the story is still unfolding, there is no conclusion to explain every loss and no guarantee that things will turn out as we imagine.
Life does not always give us that kind of clarity.
Job endured devastating losses. David was anointed king long before he took the throne, and he spent years fleeing from Saul. Their experiences were different, but both remind us that a promise and its fulfillment can be separated by a period whose length we cannot predict.
That does not mean every hardship is a test sent by God or that we should endure everything without seeking a way out. Some situations are unjust and require decisions, boundaries, and help. Faith does not require us to remain still while waiting for circumstances to change.
Nor can we promise that every painful season will end with a visible reward, as though life followed a formula we already knew. Joseph reached the palace, but it would be dishonest to turn his outcome into a promise that we will all find ourselves in a better position after suffering.
What we can recognize is that the moment we are living through does not, by itself, tell us everything about what our lives may yet become.
The mud can wear us down, affect the way we see things, and make us question what once seemed certain. Denying those effects does not make us stronger. Yet neither do we have to let them become a permanent definition of who we are.
Perhaps part of the problem is that we want to understand everything too soon. We struggle to accept that we can do what is ours to do without having a satisfying explanation for the results. We would rather have an answer, even one that is not entirely true, than sit with an unanswered question.
But not understanding the road while we are walking it does not necessarily mean we have lost our way.
Moses spent years in the wilderness before leading the people of Israel. Esther had to decide whether to risk approaching the king. Paul endured persecution and suffering throughout his ministry. Their stories show different ways of facing circumstances that demanded more than they could control.
Still, we do not need a long list of biblical figures to recognize something that happens in our own lives: we want to know when the waiting will end, what will change, and whether what we are fighting for will ever make sense.
When those answers do not come, holding on to hope can become exhausting. Not always because we have stopped believing, but because we grow tired of waiting, trying again, and moving forward without knowing whether we are any closer to what we long for.
It is easy to tell someone to have faith when we can look at their situation from the outside. From that distance, suffering seems more orderly and the answers seem simpler. But someone going through the process does not need to be told that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, the most honest response is to acknowledge that we do not know why something is happening or how long it will last.
Joseph's story does not allow us to know the outcome of our own circumstances in advance, either. While he was in prison, he did not know that one day he would manage Egypt's resources or that this position would allow him to help his family during the famine. Only later could he begin to understand part of what had happened.
Perhaps you cannot see beyond what lies in front of you today, either. You may be tired of waiting, trying again, or holding on to a hope that seems to have nowhere left to take root.
Hold on a little longer. Not because you have to appear strong all the time or because there is a guarantee that everything will change tomorrow. Nor does it mean you must remain in a situation that is hurting you. It means not declaring your story over simply because this chapter is difficult.
You can acknowledge your exhaustion without surrendering your dignity. You can seek help, change direction when necessary, and continue trusting God without having all the answers. You do not have to call what hurt you good in order to believe that your life can still hold a future.
The pit was not the end of Joseph's story, but we do not need to portray the injustice he suffered as something beautiful to recognize that God was able to work through it.
Perhaps that is one of the hardest things to accept when life does not unfold as we expected: we will not always understand the road while we are walking it. Sometimes, all we can do is attend to what is in front of us, make the next decision wisely, and keep moving without yet knowing how the story will end.
Do not confuse the place where you are with the destination you may yet reach.
Kesef Project