Miketz: Turn Around

 In this emotionally charged episode, Shirah Chanté unpacks the miraculous turnaround in Joseph's life from Genesis 41. Through powerful biblical teaching and personal insights, she reveals how God can transform situations from prison to palace overnight. Diving deep into Pharaoh's dreams and their interpretation, this episode offers hope and encouragement for those waiting for their divine turnaround. Special focus on the prophetic significance of Joseph's sons' names - Manasseh (forgetting pain) and Ephraim (fruitfulness in affliction).

Follow Shirah Chante on Social Media:
Instagram
Facebook
LinkedIn
Youtube
Blog

Listen to the Torah portions with this FREE audio bible.

Transcript

You have a perfect body.

Is that better? Can you hear me now? Okay, I think that's better. I think that's, can you hear me? Okay. You can. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much for telling me that I would have been doing a whole show and I would have been like, ah, well, let me say it again. Thank you for sticking with me.

Thank you for hanging around. Now that I'm not muted, happy new year, happy, happy, happy, happy new year. I'm so happy you all made it to 2025. I'm so happy that. God allowed you to have another year and me too. And I just want to live my life for him the best I can this year. And I hope,  what, whatever you're doing and whatever God has you up to this year.

And that,  you just do it to the best of your ability. and he is with you. His angels are helping you. We talked a lot on perfect body podcast about his angels, angels helping us. And so we have angels to help us. Through 2025, even when it going gets tough, just call on the Lord, tell him to send some angels to help you.

And he will do it. Amen. And I'm Shira Chanté, this is Perfect Body Podcast, a Torah portion after thought. We are studying the weekly. Torah portions a week later. So today we're studying Miketz. That Torah portion actually was for last Saturday. This Saturday Vayi Gosh started. And so we'll be studying that one on the next Saturday.

So we talked about Joseph last week and I call that show dreams. So dreams, I have a dream like Martin Luther King and I love Martin Luther King. You know, you just can't say, Everyone has faults. Everyone has, no one's, no human is totally perfect. The only one who walked this life perfect was the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

That's the only one. And that's why he was able to die for us because his blood was pure. And so we needed someone pure to die for us. And so thank. God, I thank God so much that we're not stuck in this world forever. God is going to give us a new world. And, but as long as we're here, we're going to make this the best we can and live for the Lord.

Okay. So Joseph, Joseph, we're starting in Genesis chapter 42. And this is where we are. So remember Joseph's brothers got jealous of him and his dreams. Joseph said, I'm gonna be somebody. I'm not just going to be stuck in this house. I'm not going to just be tending sheep all my life. I'm getting up out of here.

And his brothers were like, what, who do you think you are? You're not over us. We hate you. They were really mean to Joseph. They wanted to kill him. And I was talking about a scripture today. It's a song of Solomon chapter eight, verse six. And it says jealousy. Is as cruel as the grave. Cruel, meaning hateful, painful.

When you're cruel to someone, you're, you cause someone pain and you don't care. You like it. You have no sympathy. You want that person to be in pain. And that's how jealousy is. It's cruel as the grave. When someone is jealous of you, you have to be very careful and just pray. Pray for yourself and pray for that person that whatever is causing the jealousy would leave, would dissipate.

Because you can't control someone else's mind. You can't control, how someone else feels about you. And that's not what we're here for.  we control our own mind and we have enough work every day trying to control our own mind. Right? I know I do like keeping it focused, keeping it, keeping it.

Positive and, filled with the spirit. But you can't hide your blessings. If God blesses you, God blesses who he wants to bless. God has mercy upon who he wants to have mercy upon. And God has compassion upon whom God wants to have compassion on. we all go through ups and downs. So jealousy is really uncalled for in, in most cases.

We just have to keep an eye out for jealous people and just know that even when someone hurts you because of jealousy, God's gonna turn it around, just like he did for Joseph. That's the name of this show tonight. Turn around. We're about to, Oh, what God did for Joseph is phenomenal. It is outstanding.

He got thrown into the pit. I'm just doing a little synopsis of last week. His brother strew him in a pit. If they left them there to die, then their oldest brother Ruben said, no, let's not keep 'em there. Let's we need to, sell 'em to the, so we can get some money. So they were gonna sell him, sell 'em.

But then another group of people came and sold him. First he became, a worker in Potiphar's House Potiphar worked for the Pharaoh of Egypt. Jacob, I mean, Joseph was over all his house and he was an excellent worker until his wife, Potiphar's wife, tried to have sex with Joseph and ruined it for him.

She lied and said he tried to rape her. He didn't, he only refused to have sex with her, but she lied. And her husband believed her. Of course, what do you expect? And threw Joseph in prison. Sounds like a modern day story. You're like, are you sure this is a Bible? I just heard this story yesterday down the street.

Yeah. You know what things happen over and over, but what goes around comes around and we're going to see that today that whatever a man or woman, whatever someone reaps, they're going to sow it. And so now Joseph is in prison. That's where we left off last time. He interpreted a dream, two dreams, one for the baker and one for the butler, the baker, got his head cut off because Pharaoh was angry with him.

I don't know what he did, but I don't want, I don't want to get on Pharaoh's bad side. And the butler. was returned to his service, he was able to serve Pharaoh wine and his drinks again. And so now God gives Pharaoh a dream. So let's read a little bit about that because this is how it's going to start turning around another dream.

Dreams are so pivotal in life. I have a dream. Woo. Okay. So in Genesis chapter 42, Let's see. Actually, no. Genesis chapter 41. Pharaoh had a dream. After two whole years. So Joseph is in prison for two years for something that he did not do. Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile, and behold, there came up out of the Nile seven cows, attractive and plump, and they fed in the read grass and behold seven other cows ugly and thin came up out of the Nile after them and stood by the other cows on the bank of the Nile and the ugly thin cows ate up the seven attractive plump cows and Pharaoh awoke.

So that's Pharaoh's first dream. He had the dream that there were seven beautiful cows and they were plump and they were healthy and then seven ugly cows came up and ate the plump cows. But they didn't even look like they ate the plump cows. They were still skinny and frail when they ate those cows.

And then he had another dream, and this is what happened. Pharaoh dreamed, he fell asleep and dreamed a second time. And behold, seven ears of grain, plump and good, were growing on one stalk. And behold, after them sprouted seven ears, Thin and blighted by the east wind, and the thin ears swallowed up the seven plump, full ears, and they were awake.

So Pharaoh had these two dreams and he didn't know what they meant. He was so distraught in his mind. He was asking everyone, anyone in  his country to, to tell him what these dreams meant and nobody could. Aahhh. But there was one, the baker. Not the baker. He's dead. The baker died because he was hanged.

The butler, the butler told Pharaoh, I gotta tell you about Joseph. When I was in prison, Joseph interpreted my dream And he interpreted the baker's dream and they both came true. See, God knows, God knows how to get you into position to win, to be on top. So what did Pharaoh do? He called for Joseph out of prison.

So then this is Genesis chapter 41, verse 14, then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph. And they quickly brought him out of the pit. And when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came in before Pharaoh. Wow. He goes from being in prison to standing before the king of Egypt. Wow. So, Pharaoh tells Joseph his dreams and Joseph interprets the dream.

Joseph said, interpretations belong to God. Let's see if I can find that scripture. I love that scripture. This is Genesis chapter 41 verse 25, then Joseph said to Pharaoh, the dreams of Pharaoh are one. God has revealed to Pharaoh what is a, what he is about to do. The seven good cows are seven years and the seven good ears are seven years.

The dreams are one. The seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven. years and the seven empty ears blighted by the east wind are also seven years. It is, as I told Pharaoh, there will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt, but after them, there will arise seven years of famine and all the plenty.

forgotten. So that's, so Joseph interpreted the dream. So seven beautiful cows were seven good years. Those seven good years of corn were seven good years in Egypt. And then those ugly cows, those seven ugly cows, and those seven ugly years of corn. Those were the seven bad famine years of Egypt. And God gave him the dream twice because it was a confirmation, meaning God is about to do this thing very, very quickly.

And so Joseph gave Pharaoh instruction on what to do. He told him to hire a man who could oversee Egypt and bring in the grain while the seven years were good. And he said, you, and oh this is awesome. This is how Joseph was exalted in verse 33. Now, therefore let Pharaoh select a discerning and wise man and let him oversee the land of Egypt.

Let Pharaoh proceed to appoint overseers over the land and take one fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt during the seven plentiful years and let them gather all of the food of these good years. So this proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, Can we find a man like this in whom is the spirit of God?

Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, Since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house. Wow. And all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only as regards the throne. Will I be greater than you? And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Joseph, see, I have set you over all the land of Egypt.

And he gave him his ring. This is amazing. This is amazing. He was just in prison. Do you, do you realize he was just in prison? He, he was in prison. He was in jail. And now he's the ruler over the entire country of Egypt. What? God can do.

Don't give up. If you go through a hard time, don't give up because God is going to turn it around for you, for me. We just have to keep going. And sometimes we suffer, right? Like I said last time, we suffer for things that are not our fault, that we had really no control over, but keep going. And one night.

This is an overnight success. This is what we call overnight success, right? One night, Joseph went from the pit to the palace in one night.

Wow. Only God can do that. And see, that's the kind of turnaround God wants to give you. I really believe that in my heart of hearts. That what God is going to do in your life, it's going to be so unbelievable that only he could have done it. There will be no mistake about it. The only one who could have done something like that, what God is going to do for you is God.

He's the only one who has the power to do what he's going to do for you. Sometimes that's why you have to wait so long or that's why it seems like it's not happening. And you're like, ah, you know, it's kind of frustrating. Cause I know I felt like that. It's like, Oh, I've been trying all these years. I've been doing what I know to do.

I've been doing my best to live for God. You know, I haven't been perfect. I fall in here. I fall in there, but I got back up and I, and I washed myself off and I, and I kept going. I didn't stop believing, even when people hurt me and were jealous of me. You might be saying that your turnaround is coming. Do not give up.

Don't waste all that time. Don't, don't, you can't waste the time you've gone through. If you give up, that's going to be like wasted. So you can't give up. You have to keep going and God will do it for you. He's going to turn it around. Trust him. He, he is. Amazing. He's strong. Is there anything too hard for God?

No. He took him from jail to being the ruler of Egypt. There was no, Oh, well, I'm a felon now. Now I gotta, I gotta, how am I going to get a job? I'm not in prison, but I still got a felony record and now I can't get a job. No, it was none of that. What record? Everything was expunged. It was totally clear and free.

Free and clear of all the baggage. Pharaoh gave him a wife. And he had two beautiful sons. And I want to end right here with the name of his sons. We talked before about how names in Hebrew Your name is really significant and embodies who you are. So if you don't know what your name means, you should find out the meaning of your name, because that has something to do with your life.

And if you don't like the meaning of your name, you can always change it.

Okay. So let's. Let's hear about Joseph's two sons  and the meaning of the names of his sons. Okay.

Here we go. This is in Genesis.

Genesis. Oh, gosh.

Okay. Joseph was 30 years old when he became a ruler, so he's still young. He has his whole life ahead of him. Okay. Let's see. Okay, before the year of famine came, two sons were born to Joseph, Asenath, the daughter of Potipharah, priest of An, bore them to him. Joseph called the name of the firstborn, Manasseh, for he said, God has made me forget all my hardship and all my father's house.

So Manasseh, meaning God made me forget. That's what, God, I could just cry, it's like, that's what God's going to do, all the pain, all the suffering, all you've gone through, he's going to make you forget it. Woo! In Jesus name. The name of the second he called Ephraim, for God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.

Fruitful, Ephraim means fruitful. So, this was his affliction. He was in affliction when he was thrown into that prison. That was his land of affliction, but God changed it around and made him fruitful. Wow. Thank you, Lord. And there's more to happen in this portion, but I'm going to end here with a prayer.

This is powerful. Lord God, all of those who are listening, Father God, maybe they've gone through some pain, maybe, maybe they've gone through some struggles, but Father God, Turn it around for them. Do something in our life that only you can do. That all who see it will know this is the Lord our God who did this for them.

In Jesus name I pray. Thank you for joining me. Woo!

Don't mean to cry here, like, ah! Next week I'm We'll continue. There's more. There's more. Joseph, his, his victory continues in the Torah portion Vayigash next week. And remember to love God, love you, and love people.