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There are pathways in the spirit for us to walk in, that will help us navigate through such uncertain seasons and times. Let’s see if we can find these pathways.

Genesis 45: 8 “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. 9 Now hurry back to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don’t delay. 10 You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me—you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have. 11 I will provide for you there, because five years of famine are still to come. Otherwise, you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute.’

What happened is, there was famine, and Joseph told his family, about 70 people to come and dwell near him, in Goshen, where he will provide for them.  Now Goshen means to draw near. So, there was a pandemic, there was famine in the whole land, but Joseph says come dwell in Goshen where I will be providing for you. Joseph is no longer just their brother; he is now Lord over all of Egypt. He had authority to build an infrastructure of sustenance, a secure place called Goshen. Goshen was no longer a mere city in Egypt. It had become a fortified place, a sanctuary city; a secure place that was birth forth out of Joseph’s intimate relationship with God. When he told them to dwell in Goshen, he was not speaking to them as their brother, he was speaking as a Prophet. He had the prophetic capacity, economic and political influence, a multi-dimensional grace of God fully operational in the marketplace. The whole plague that came all over Egypt didn’t had zero impact on the children of Israel in Goshen. Let me show you…

Exodus 9: 22 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that hail will fall all over Egypt—on people and animals and on everything growing in the fields of Egypt.” 23 When Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So, the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt; 24 hails fell, and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation. 25 Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields—both people and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree. 26 The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were.

Only in the land of Goshen where the children of Israel were, there was no hail. Hail was one of the plagues that God had sent to Egypt. So, they were secure and safe in Goshen. The scriptures describes the Holy Spirit as our Stand-byer (Paraclete). It also says in the book of Proverbs, there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, that’s the Holy Spirit. (Proverbs 18:24)

Saints of God, there is a secure place for you in the midst of a pandemic. There is a divine protection, provision, vision, purpose, direction and prosperity in the midst of a pandemic. Where is Goshen today? In the context of our present day post the pandemic, being, where is Goshen? The Scriptures says, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and they are safe (Proverbs 18:10). The name of Jesus has become our Goshen. Jesus is the New Testament Goshen. He is near and not just near, he is within us, he lives in us for in him we live, in him we move and in him we have our being. He is the fulfillment of all things. 

Goshen means he is the fulfillment, the exemplifier and executor of all the promises of the Father. He is the perfect substance of what Goshen shadowed in the old covenant. In the old covenant, Goshen foreshadowed the place of security, the place of prosperity, the place of God’s blessing. And today in the new covenant, Jesus is the substance of Goshen, the reality of Goshen, the way, the truth, the life. The name of Jesus is a city where we dwell.

Exodus 1:5, The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy[a] in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. 6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were exceedingly fruitful; they multiplied greatly, increased in numbers and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. 8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” 11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so, the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly. 15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.

Now, when Joseph, Jacob’s sons and all the seventy people who came to Goshen had long died, there arose a pharaoh who didn’t know about Joseph. It was not that there was no record of Joseph’s life archived for generations to come, this Pharaoh didn’t care for the past nor place any value on any form of ideological or chronological events leading to his time. This made him ruthless against God’s people. He saw that the Israelites had multiplied exceedingly and might turn against them, and ordered all the male born sons of the Israelites to be killed. The new king, chosen to be oblivious to the past introduced a new policy of a death sentence. He was ready to annihilate all the male children of the Hebrews. Males carry the seed for generational preservation and continuity. If you want to destroy a nation, destroy the sons. This was this pharaoh’s strategy, …death sentence! We could parallelize this pharaoh’s death sentence on God’s people with the pandemic because this is genocidal in its fullest extent, just as the pandemic.

Exodus 2:1, Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket[a] for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. 5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” 8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So, the girl went and got the baby’s mother.

We are told, there was a man from the tribe of Levi who took a woman from the tribe of Levi as his wife, and she gave birth to a son. When she saw he was a beautiful child she hid him three months until she could no longer hide him under the death sentence. 

There are gifts that God is going to give you in the midst of a pandemic, there is a kind of blessing that you will receive in the face of a death sentence, in the face of a pandemic, when all odds are against you, you are going to give birth to a holy seed, a powerful thing, a big thing; God is going to bless you with something that you can’t even get even if there was no pandemic. 

Sometimes God will give you the best in the midst of your hardest times. There will be a time when you can no longer hide what God has given you, it will be time to bring it forth. Some of you have been hiding things he has given you for many years, you’ve been hiding, blaming the death sentence, blaming the pandemic, blaming circumstances but there will come a time when you can’t hide it anymore. It’s got to come forth! When you squeeze a true Believer, Christ comes forth.

Then we are told, the mother put him in a basket and hid him by the riverbanks with the alligators, surrounded by all ferocious marine beasts and reptiles that could attack and kill him. Most times, when God wants to use you, He will expose you to the most volatile  environments and people, He will develop you in the most awkward condition. Like David under the administration of a mad king Saul.

When the gift is about to manifest, it will be exposed to dangerous environments that will be so harsh and dangerous, to abort your vision, your gifting, to stop you, discourage you from manifesting the gift that God has placed inside of you. All of these things will first and foremost come against you, because the enemy’s strategy is weaken your faith and confidence in God. He will discourage you, causing you to doubt if you heard God. This is not an uncommon occurrence among God’s people, the Thief preys on your thoughts to convince you otherwise about your preparedness or validation from God. This often leads the believer to revert back to hiding and missing their appointed times and season.

Moses was left alone by the shores of the Nile, there are seasons of divine isolation when God would be working underground. Another word for this is, wilderness season. After Moses’s sister left the child there, she stood from afar, watching over him. The presence of God is always guaranteed with us in our alone or wilderness season. No harm will prevail over you. There will be people who care about your purpose, your vision, your gifting. 

Pharaoh’s daughter with her maids came to the river side to bath and then they saw this basket. They took it and found the baby crying inside. Pharaoh’s daughter represent people in strategic positions in society that even during a death sentence, a pandemic or the most severe season of your life, these strategic people will locate and identify the potentials in you. They will celebrate the gift that you are to the body of Christ and to the world at large. Your gifts are crying out. Your talents are crying out. That music ministry inside of you is crying out, that skill, talent and wisdom within you is a ministry crying forth for manifestation. This is the reason why you often feel frustrated. That ‘baby’ can no longer be hidden, that potential, and purpose will thrive even under a death sentence.

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