Forget and Be Fruitful

Genesis 41: 51,52 "Joseph named his firstborn Manasseh and said, "It is because God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household." The second son he named Ephraim and said, "It is because God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering."

Joseph was a man who understood how to move on. When he was brought low, it would have been easy to sit in the bitterness and resentment of the circumstances that brought him there. When he was elevated it would have been easy to use it as a time to nurse a spiteful, vengeful heart. But the naming of his two boys revealed that the time in prison and the time in the palace did not destroy his heart.

Manasseh = 'Forget'

Ephraim = 'Twice Fruitful'

I know I've been beating this drum for awhile, but I think I have to keep doing it until it gets through to me. We must be able to forget before we can become twice fruitful. If we hold onto to anything - good or bad - it is too hard to move on. Many of us are being destroyed by resentment because of our time in the prison. A health issue, a relationship gone awry, a bad mistake that we made that caused hurt, someone who has hurt us - we all have them. We have also had palaces, times that we've been elevated beyond what we deserve, and these can kill us as well.

The key is to be like Joseph (and Paul in Philippians 3:7) and allow God to give us the ability to forget, and then press forward for something greater and more fruitful, even in 'the land of our suffering.' We think it's only in good times that we produce fruit, but the seed is germinating in these prisons.