It said they hurt him. In Genesis 49, Verses 22 to 24, it says now Joseph is a fruitful tree planted by a well of water. In other words he's saying Joseph grew, flourished, prospered everywhere he was. How's that? Because he's got a well of water; he's got life from God coming into him, and it says the archers have shot at him. They hated him, and they sorely wounded him. Now that tells us he felt pain. He experienced terrible pain, terrible hurt, terrible grief, terrible anger. He actually suffered deeply - but it says this: his bow remained strong, or in other words his spirit and his heart, that's where your life flows from, remained flowing and alive and right with God. He never let the poison of his circumstance get into him. He kept his character sweet.
See, his strength remained in him because God gave him strength, so what most people do in problems is they groan and complain, ring, talk to this one, that one. What he did was he turned to God, praised and rejoiced, held the promise of God and then held onto God. God, you are my strength. Paul wrote, he said in my first mission, he said everyone left me, but the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me. David, when everything was going against him, everyone's complaining, his leaders want to kill him, he strengthened himself in God. There is a capacity we have, if we will reach into God he'll put strength in your spirit! You can handle whatever comes to you! You are a winner in life, because the spirit of God is in you, but you've got to have a winning attitude, and a winning attitude doesn't complain, doesn't groan. It doesn't mean you don't get hurt. There are times I've been deeply hurt, I've wept and wept and wanted to be out of what I was in, deeply wounded, deeply, deeply grieved, deeply in pain, sobbed with the pain and stood up and found God and kept going.
See, that's what character is about. That's what God wants to get in you. You've got to choose in the midst of your pain right now, the midst of your struggle, in just whatever it is, whatever life has hurled to you, I can tell you this. You've got the potential to be bigger than it! Whatever's come at you, tell them greater is he that is in you than he that's in that world. I tell you, hold the word of God! Hold it and speak it! No matter what you see down there, see it in the spirit, see and hold your dream, hold what God said over your life. Speak it out over your life until you shape your world by the words God gave you. He held a dream God gave him and never quit, never quit, never quit, never quit! Did he doubt? Of course he doubted. Did he have down days? Of course he had down days. Did he get depressed? Yes. Did he get hurt? Yes. Did he get angry? Yes. Resentful? Yes. Bitter? Yes, all the above. But he held God's word and held onto God, and then this is what else he did - he allowed the Lord to help him resolve the grief and anger and resentment and bitterness. How do we know that? Because when you meet him with his brothers, in Genesis 45, Verses 4 to 8, this is the amazing thing he says, and we'll just finish with this. I could share more but we'll just leave it with this.
He said when he revealed himself to his brothers, he said guys, don't be angry and don't be grieved and don't be upset, and don't fear that I'm going to pay you back. Now what kind of heart and spirit is that? You've been put down for 17 years by your brothers, hated by them, put down every day and then finally betrayed and sold as a slave in Egypt. What kind of grace do you need in your life to treat people who've treated you badly that way? See, this is what makes a king. He's got a big heart. They're not petty, don't hold resentments and bitterness. They let it go real quick. You get hurt? Yeah, of course. Come to God with your hurt and pain, find strength in God, and then resolve it by forgiveness ,and bless those who curse you, and pray for those who despitefully use you. Jesus told us how to do it, it's not hard. It's just you've got to do it, and that's what makes the difference between big people and little people.