If Joseph had written his autobiography, he might have titled it something like
Scott Adams’ How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.
It would’ve fit.
You’d think being the favored son would’ve meant being doted on, and protected, by his brothers. Instead, they hated his guts. They nearly killed him — and then sold him as a slave, dragging him away to Egypt.
Some start.
Just when Joseph begins to find his footing, just when it looks like he’s finally making lemonade out of the lemons life handed him, Potiphar’s wife enters the scene — and he’s thrown into prison.
And yet, that doesn’t keep Joseph down.
He shakes off his misfortune, earns trust, and rises again. He’s put in charge of the prison — even serving two VIP prisoners: the king’s chief cupbearer and chief baker.
Genesis 40 tells us that Joseph interprets their dreams correctly. And then he makes a rare request — perhaps the only time in his life he asks a human being for anything at all:
“Remember me when it is well with you.”
And then comes one of the coldest verses in Scripture:
“The chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.” (Genesis 40:23)
Not just briefly.
The very next chapter tells us — he forgot Joseph for two full years.
Two years of waiting.
Two years with no recorded self-pity or grumbling.
And being forgotten anyway.
Joseph’s story isn’t titled How to Be Unlucky and Still Win Big.
No. This is how Joseph puts it:
“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”
You win big — not because life is fair.
You win big — not because people come through for you.
You win big — because God is with you.
You may be a Joseph, in a foreign land.
You may be a Joseph, treated unfairly and forgotten by people.
But God does not forget you.
That contrast shows up elsewhere in Scripture.
In Genesis 8 — in the middle of judgment, chaos, and a flooded world — Scripture quietly says:
“But God remembered Noah…”
Who would have faulted God if Noah had been forgotten?
No one.
But God didn’t forget.
And then there’s another story — tucked away in Kings. (1 Kings 14:13)
Jeroboam — a king more corrupt than all before him. Judgment falls on his entire household. And yet, Scripture pauses to say something stunning:
There was one boy in that corrupt house — sick and about to die — and God noted that something good was found in him.
That is mind-boggling.
Sometimes we do good for people and hope they’ll remember us.
Often, they don’t.
But while human memory is selective and fragile,
God’s attention is relentless.
His eyes move to and fro — and land on
a forgotten prisoner,
a man and his ark in a flooded world,
a child hidden inside a sin-ridden household.
And yes —
His eye is on that sparrow too.
