Live and Let Live: What We Can Learn from Joseph of Egypt About Truly Keeping the Faith

With the recent decisions concerning DOMA and Prop 8, many people who share similar ideologies with me have expressed horror at what this world is coming to. People are criticizing our leaders and lamenting the fact that our country keeps getting worse and worse, and the animosity between sides is greater than ever. And yes, I believe the world is going downhill. Wars and calamities are happening all around us, good is being taken for evil, and the love of man is waxing cold. The Second Coming is fast approaching. In no way do I deny that.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around the idea that when our brothers and sisters make poor choices, it then becomes our duty to send them on guilt trips for bringing this world one step closer to destruction. In my 32+ years as a Latter-Day Saint, not once have I come across a scripture in any of the Standard Works that instructs us to protest against a person's choices AFTER he/she has made them. I recently mentioned this sentiment on my Facebook page, and someone said that I still need to do all I can to show that I'm against immoral practices, otherwise I cannot expect to not be held accountable. I wish I had corrected him more fully. Instead of qualifying his statement, I should have just said that his statement was blatantly false. Because it is.

I think a lot of us get this strange idea in our heads that sincerely believing in something and never backing down means throwing rocks at the neighborhood bully's head as he walks away after pounding you. Many God-fearing people think that defending their faith means spending their time and energy denouncing the Godlessness that has befallen this world and shunning those who are products of it. If that were true, Joseph of the Old Testament would have spent every minute of every day in captivity trying to escape the house of Potiphar, after which he would have fled the heathen land of Egypt in search of the Promised Land.

But he did not. Instead he endured, using the gifts that God had given him to thrive within his own realm, never losing faith and never sinning against God. Despite being a slave who had to do everything his masters told him to do, he somehow found a way to remain true to his covenants. That eventually landed him in prison, but even then, he managed to keep God's Commandments. Even as a prisoner, he was free. As Ben Kingsley said as Potiphar in the 1995 movie Joseph, "As long as he has his God, he is free." That sentiment is supported in the book of Genesis: "And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian" (Gen. 39:2).

Next to keeping his covenants despite his situation, I think the best part about Joseph's story is that his obedience to God's Commandments allowed him and those around him to thrive. He spent several years as a slave and then as a prisoner before even getting an audience with Pharaoh, and yet he still moved up the ranks, always earning the trust of his captors and using the power of God to help them (See Gen. 39:3-4, 20-23). That of course is what eventually put him in a position to interpret Pharoah's dream, which earned him the opportunity to use God's gifts on a much grander scale to benefit God's children.

If you're familiar with that much of the story, you likely also know that all of this enabled Joseph to not just save Egypt, but to save his family! His family, who had made the same covenants with God and had been promised the same blessings as he, benefited from Joseph's unwavering faith and endurance that had not been stained by bitterness and resentment towards those who despitefully used him. He had not cursed the land of Egypt, but rather had helped them prosper, which in turn helped his family prosper.

So what do we do in these hard times? I'm not going to lie and say I'm okay with what's going on around us. I am disappointed by what is happening to this world's moral compass, and often I do get discouraged that more and more people are forgetting God. But we must be careful not to lose our heads by making up strict "standards of righteousness" that nobody can follow without betraying human decency. That sounds like an oxymoron because it is. I truly believe that when we are told to be in the world but not of the world, it is meant that we should allow ourselves to live among those who do not believe the way we do, keeping our own covenants and yet allowing them to exercise the free agency with which God has blessed them. The trick there is to keep ALL of our covenants, which includes sacrificing ourselves unto God by serving Him and His children, as well as being careful not to conform to the world, but to let the Power of God transform them by showing through our example what is acceptable before God (See Romans 12:1-2).

So just lead by example, everyone. Share the Gospel, serve others, and teach the truth when given the opportunity--and there are many opportunities out there. Show compassion for those who have been stained by the poor choices of others as well as their own, and look to that as an opportunity to bring them unto the Gospel as well. Do not fall into the trap of mocking and scorning those who are not holding to the rod, or even gnashing your teeth at evil. Those reactions are specifically reserved for those who have not remained true and faithful. Do not fool yourself into believing that remaining true and faithful means doing it right back.