God did not give Joseph any special information about how to get from being the son of a nomad in Palestine to being Pharaoh's right hand man in Egypt. What He did give Joseph were eleven jealous brothers, the attention of a very loose and vengeful woman, the ability to do the service of interpreting dreams and managing other people's affairs and the grace to do that faithfully wherever he was.

I am tired again tonight - a good kind of tired. Some aches are well earned. I wish I could see the sky tonight

And step by step You'll lead me / And I will follow You all of my days.

Sometimes my life just don't make sense at all. The mountains looks so big and my faith just seems so small.

And I believe what I believe / Is what makes me what I am / I did not make it, no it is making me / It is the very truth of God and not / The invention of any man.

The Bible is not a book for the faint of heart -- it is a book full of all the greed and glory and violence and tenderness and sex and betrayal that befits mankind. It is not the collection of pretty little anecdotes mouthed by pious little church mice -- it does not so much nibble at our shoe leather as it cuts to the heart and splits the marrow from the bone. It does not give us answers fitted to our small-minded questions, but truth that goes beyond what we even know to ask.

I am a Christian, not because someone explained the nuts and bolts of Christianity, but because there were people willing to be nuts and bolts.