“Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the Lord tested Joseph’s character.”

The word character has come up a number of times in the last week.  A week ago today I was running in Washington, DC and at the President Teddy Roosevelt Memorial, I read on the memorial that he said “In man or nation the one indisputable requisite is character”. The night before at the Kennedy Center Honors, as Al Pacino was being honored in the White House ceremony, he said, “I don’t usually speak if I am not speaking the lines of a character”.  And today I was reading an article about leadership and character was one of the four descriptive words for a strong leader.  so, there is character that represents the values that we hold and how we demonstrate those values and then there is a character that we can play out on stage, or in life.  And when we put on the character of our live, shouldn’t they really be the same?  You see, when our character  is most important to who we are, then we will find that character will be consistent across all of our works and endeavors.

The Old Testament is filled with those whose character was tested by God.  Joseph got as much of this testing as anyone and maybe more than anyone.  But, he stood firm on his character as all he had when other things were taken from him. Today, our character will be tested. It might be something that is a big test, but more than likely it will be something small and seemingly inconsequential…to us…for now.  Let’s remember today that we are to consider each and every character test to be sure we are living out our life as God asks us to do, big or small.

Reference:  Psalm 105:19 (New Living Translation)