What motivates us to be obedient? In a world designed to cultivate disobedience, where is the incentive supposed to come from? If we’re honest, most of us live with an expectation—sometimes overt, sometimes buried deep—that God will bless us for our obedience. Centuries of bad theology have trained us to believe that obedience guarantees earthly reward. And without realizing it, those expectations become a major part of our motivation for obedience in Egypt. We start to believe we’re entitled to certain blessings; that we’ve earned them. When that happens, obedience becomes a kind of spiritual genie in a bottle. Especially in America, we begin to treat obedience as the lever that should make God improve our job, our finances, our relationships, our family, our circumstances. And when those blessings don’t materialize, we slip into spiritual victimhood. We grow frustrated with how Egypt is treating us. We question God. We become cynical. We whisper, “Come on, God… I’m trying to serve You. Why can’t You give me a break?” Eventually we wonder, “Why bother?” But the next part of Joseph’s story confronts that mindset head on. Joseph’s obedience didn’t earn him comfort—it earned him treachery and suffering. Egypt didn’t reward his faithfulness; it punished it. And yet, God was working through every moment. This passage forces us to rethink what motivates our obedience—and to rediscover a kind of faithfulness that isn’t built on entitlement, but on trust.
