Joseph’s Perseverance

Mission Briefing

The cell smelled like stone and damp straw. Joseph had been here before – not in this prison, but in this feeling. The bottom. The place where everything you built is gone and the person who took it from you is not even sorry. He had been thrown into a pit by his brothers. He had been sold for twenty pieces of silver. He had worked his way up from slave to steward in Potiphar’s house, faithful day after day, and then one lie from one person had ended all of it in a single afternoon. He was not guilty. That did not matter. The guards had not asked. So here he was – a Hebrew slave in an Egyptian prison, with nothing to show for years of faithfulness except a reputation no one here knew about and a God he could not see. The question the morning brings is not a dramatic one. It is quiet and ordinary and harder than it sounds: what do you do next?

Mission Verse

“The Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.” – Genesis 39:23

Even in prison, something was still working. This verse is for your child: God did not leave Joseph when life got hard – and He does not leave us either.

Mission Briefing

Before the prison, there was the pit. Joseph was seventeen years old when his brothers stripped him of his coat and dropped him into a dry cistern. They sat down to eat their lunch while he called out from below. Then they sold him – not to someone kind, not close to home – to traders heading to Egypt. By the time his father was weeping over a goat-blood-stained coat, Joseph was already a line item on a merchant’s inventory. Sold. Property. Gone.

In Egypt, Joseph was purchased by a man named Potiphar, an official in Pharaoh’s court. This is where the first impossible thing happens. Joseph did not shut down. He did not go through the motions. He served Potiphar faithfully – so faithfully, so consistently, so genuinely well that Potiphar eventually handed him the keys to everything. His house, his land, his accounts. A slave ran the whole operation. That is not something that happens to someone who gave up. That is what faithfulness looks like when no one made you do it.

Then Potiphar’s wife lied about him. Joseph had refused her – the right thing, the hard thing – and the cost of doing the right thing was the prison. He lost his position. He lost Potiphar’s trust. He lost the keys. And here is what the Bible does not soften: he had done nothing wrong. He had every reason to conclude that faithfulness did not work.

In prison, Joseph did the same thing again. He served well. He rose to a position of trust even there – the warden relied on him the way Potiphar had. And in that prison, two men arrived with troubled dreams: the cupbearer and the baker, both officials of Pharaoh. Joseph interpreted their dreams accurately. The baker was executed, just as Joseph said. The cupbearer was restored, just as Joseph said. Before the cupbearer left, Joseph made one quiet request: remember me. Mention me to Pharaoh. I do not belong here.

The cupbearer forgot him for two years. Two years. Joseph did not know it would be two years. He may have wondered every morning whether today was the day someone would remember. It was not. Then it was not again. Then it was not again. This is the part of the story that is easy to skip over, and it is the part that matters most. Joseph was not rewarded quickly. The faithfulness he had built over years in Potiphar’s house bought him nothing but a prison cell. The kindness he showed two men with troubled dreams bought him two years of silence. And then, one morning, Pharaoh had dreams that no one could interpret – and the cupbearer finally remembered the Hebrew in the prison.

Joseph was brought out. He stood before the most powerful man in the known world, unshaved, wearing prison clothes, and he interpreted the dreams clearly and well. Seven years of plenty, seven years of famine. Pharaoh looked at him and said something that would have been unimaginable that morning in the cell: who else could do what this man can do? By the end of the day, Joseph was wearing Pharaoh’s signet ring and riding in the second chariot. From the prison to the palace in a single day – but it was not a single day. It was years. It was the pit and the slave ship and Potiphar’s house and the prison and the cupbearer’s silence and all the ordinary mornings in between where Joseph simply did the next right thing, not because he could see where it was leading, but because that was who he was.

Perseverance is not gritted-teeth waiting for your circumstances to change – it is doing the next right thing faithfully, especially when the last right thing cost you everything.

Your Child and This Moment

Most children will never face a prison cell. But every child will face a version of this: you did the right thing and it made your life harder, not easier. You told the truth and got in trouble anyway. You worked hard and someone else got the credit. You were kind to someone and they were not kind back. The feeling in that moment – the unfairness of it, the temptation to conclude that doing right does not work – that feeling is exactly what Joseph was navigating. And what he did with it shaped the rest of his life.

The lesson Joseph teaches is not a cheerful one and it is worth sitting with that honestly. He was not rewarded quickly. The cupbearer’s forgetting was not a small delay – it was two years. There is no way to make that light. But what the story shows is that Joseph’s character did not depend on his circumstances. He was the same person in Potiphar’s house, in the prison, and in the palace. He brought the same faithfulness to every room. That kind of perseverance is not built in a crisis. It is built in the ordinary days – the small decisions, the quiet choices, the way your child handles the next small thing in front of them. You are watching that being built right now, even if it does not feel dramatic.

You do not need to manufacture a lesson from this. Just let the story do what it does. A child who hears that Joseph waited two years and still came out the other side has something to hold onto when their own wait feels long. They do not need a palace at the end. They just need to know that the waiting was not wasted – and that the God who was with Joseph in the prison is the same one with them in theirs.

Put It Into Practice

• The Same Person in Every Room. Joseph was faithful in Potiphar’s house, in the prison, and in the palace – not because his circumstances were good, but because his character was consistent. Talk with your child about what it looks like to bring the same effort and honesty to something hard as they would to something easy. This week, watch for a moment when the right thing is also the costly thing – and name it together.
• What You Do While You Wait. The cupbearer forgot Joseph for two years. Joseph did not stop. He kept serving faithfully in the prison during those years – and that faithfulness was not wasted, even though it was invisible. Help your child identify something they are waiting on right now – a friendship, a skill, a situation – and ask: what is the next right thing I can do while I wait?
• The Next Right Thing. Joseph never had the full plan. He had the next step. Pit, then Potiphar’s house. Prison, then the cupbearer. The prison, then Pharaoh. Each stage, he did the next right thing without being able to see the stage after that. When your child faces something overwhelming, help them shrink the question: not “how does this all work out” – but “what is the next right thing I can do today?”

Get the free printable coloring page →

Hero Mission Activity – The Forgotten Years

Joseph waited two years after asking the cupbearer to remember him – and the cupbearer forgot. This activity helps your child feel the weight of that wait and understand what Joseph chose to do with it.

What you need: A piece of paper, something to draw or write with, and a quiet ten minutes together.

What you do: Draw three boxes across the page and label them: The Pit / The Prison / The Palace. In each box, draw or write one thing Joseph lost, one thing Joseph still had, and one thing Joseph chose to do. When you are done, look at all three boxes together and ask your child: in every single box, what stayed the same?

Talk about it together:

• Ages 4-6: Joseph had to wait a very long time. Have you ever waited a long time for something? What did you do while you were waiting?
• Ages 7-9: The cupbearer forgot Joseph for two whole years after Joseph helped him. How do you think Joseph felt? What do you think helped him keep going?
• Ages 10-13: Joseph never got a promise that things would get better – he just kept doing the right thing anyway. Is that easy or hard for you? What makes it hard to keep going when you do not know how things will turn out?

This week’s challenge: Pick one thing in your life that is hard or taking longer than you hoped. Write it on a piece of paper and underneath it write: “The next right thing I can do is ___.” Put it somewhere you will see it.

Mission Prayer

Joseph’s story is a reminder that we are not alone in the long waits – and neither are our children. Pray this together:

“God, help us keep going when the road is long and the reward is nowhere in sight. Teach us to do the next right thing – in the pit, in the prison, and in the waiting. Amen.”