One of my favorite champions is Joseph. Here is a young man, his father's favorite, who has a dream in which he sees his family paying homage to him. By telling his family the dream, it stirs up jealousy, hatred, and murder.
His brothers plot to destroy him and end up throwing him into a pit to die. Eventually he is found and sold to Midianite traders into slavery and taken to a foreign land to serve an Egyptian officer named Potiphar. Joseph became a personal assistant and overseer to everything Potiphar owned.
There in Egypt Joseph's championship nature starts to bring him favor. He is successful at everything given to him to do. In fact, the Scriptures say Potiphar left everything he owned in Joseph's charge and with Joseph there, Potiphar did not concern himself with anything except the food that he ate.
Joseph had become to Potiphar a champion overseer. But Potiphar's wife decided SHE wanted Joseph's assistance as well, only NOT in a godly way! She tempted Joseph, trying to seduce him and get him to betray his master. Champions in the making often face choices that reveal their character. However, Joseph was not going to lose his integrity for a moment of sexual pleasure. I wonder how many lose their potential blessing because they fail when they are similarly challenged?
To be a champion requires champion thinking, and Joseph knew his integrity was at stake. He chose integrity and ended up in prison. Sometimes when I think about the people in our prisons today, I wonder if there are many Josephs behind those bars -- champions who choose integrity and therefore loss for a season.
Champions never stay down, though, and even in prison, Joseph rose to leadership, becoming a helper to the chief jailer. Eventually Joseph interpreted dreams for two men. Those dream interpretations led Joseph to the Pharoah and finally into a championship role as second in command.
What "pits" have you found yourself in that later proved to be just stepping stones because of the championship character you exhibited in those situations?
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