Right decision, bad consequences

When I was in college, I got a job freelance writing for a local newspaper.  It wasn't much money, but it was my first paid writing gig.  I was excited.

Each week I would call the editor to get my assignment.  Shortly thereafter, I'd call the person or the lead, set up an interview and start researching.  A few days later, I'd submit my story for publication.

In the midst of all that, I was taking introductory journalism classes in college.  I learned the importance of hard leads and reverse pyramid structuring and capturing relevant details first.  While those are great for hard new stories--like crime, government and tragedy--they don't work so well for feature stories, which is what I was mostly assigned.

I wrote a for a few months, applying all that I was learning in school.  As the weeks went by, I noticed less and less of my stories making the cut.  Then one day I called asking for another assignment.  The response was stern:  no more stories would be coming.  My work wasn't up to snuff.  They had hired someone else.

Needless to say, I was devastated.  My dream in life was to write for a newspaper.  Now, a few months into my first stringer job, I was let go. 

I didn't understand.  No one told me why my work wasn't good enough.  I had followed all the rules I was learning in school.  How come doing what I was taught and told led to my quick dismissal from the local paper?  (I later learned the publisher had no newspaper background and that I was writing stories that required more training.)

Sometimes doing the right thing leads to bad consequences.

We choose to be honest and it costs us our job.  We choose to be responsible and we lose a friend.  We choose to honor God's Word and it lands us in hot water with others.

Joseph would understand that.  He choose not to sleep with his boss' wife, even after she begged him repeatedly.  His reward for being an upstanding, honest young man?  Prison.  Joseph chose to do the right thing and was led away in handcuffs to the local jail.

As he sat there, he probably pondered all that had gone wrong.  He may have wondered how things would ever get right again. 

Yet, because of his faith, he chose to obey God's Word, which in the long run led to the salvation of him and his family.  He became known as a man of God who could interpret dreams--a reputation that rose him in the ranks of Pharaoh's government.

Had he done the wrong thing, Joseph may never have been anything more than a slave in Potiphar's house. 

God honors those who obey him.