“And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man…”

 

– Genesis 39:2 (KJV

 

Joseph had every excuse in the world to quit.

Seriously. If anybody in the Bible had earned the right to throw himself a world-class pity party, Joseph had a pretty solid application.

His own brothers hated him enough to throw him into a pit. Then they sold him into slavery. He ends up in Potiphar’s house, works his way up, does the right thing when Potiphar’s wife comes after him, and what does doing the right thing get him? Falsely accused and thrown into prison.

Fantastic. Thanks, God.

If that happened to most of us, we’d be sitting in the prison cell saying, “I tried. I did what was right. Look where it got me. I’m done.”

Joseph didn’t.

Every time Joseph’s circumstances got parked, Joseph kept moving.

He couldn’t control the pit. He couldn’t control being sold. He couldn’t control Potiphar’s wife lying about him. He couldn’t control prison. He couldn’t even control the cupbearer forgetting about him after Joseph helped him.

But Joseph could control what Joseph did next.

So he kept building.

In Potiphar’s house, Joseph became so trustworthy that Potiphar put him over everything he owned. Then Joseph gets tossed into prison, and somehow he does it again. The keeper of the prison puts Joseph in charge.

Think about how crazy that is. Joseph goes from running somebody else’s house to being an inmate, and instead of saying, “This job is beneath me,” he becomes the best freaking prisoner in the place.

That’s not exactly a career path anybody puts on a vision board.

But God was building something in Joseph while Joseph was building wherever his feet happened to be.

That hits home for me because building businesses has looked a whole lot less like the highlight reel people see from the outside and a whole lot more like this: build, hit a wall, adjust, build again.

DOT Docs is a great example.

We built Eclipse DOT around solving real compliance problems for companies operating commercial vehicles. The longer we did the work, the more obvious something became: there had to be a better way to manage all of it.

Driver files. Vehicle files. Inspections. Training. Compliance information. All the pieces companies are trying to keep organized without turning the office into a filing cabinet with a pulse.

So we started building www.DOTDocs.com.

Wouldn’t it have been nice if the story went like this: I had the idea, we built the software, everything worked perfectly, customers lined up, angels sang, and somebody handed me a giant novelty check?

Yeah. That’s not how software works.

Building software has meant delays, changes, development problems, features that needed to be rebuilt, money going out before the vision was fully realized, and plenty of moments when what I could see in my head was moving a whole lot faster than what was sitting on the screen in front of me.

There have been times when DOT Docs felt stalled.

But stalled and dead are not the same thing.

Some of you need to read that again.

You have declared something dead because it isn’t moving at the speed you expected.

Your business hasn’t taken off yet, so you think God must not be in it. Your career hasn’t moved, so you stop developing yourself. Your marriage hits a hard season, so you stop investing in it. Your ministry isn’t growing, so you stop serving. You started writing the book, nobody cared about the first three chapters, and now the file is collecting digital dust.

You parked because your circumstances parked.

Joseph didn’t do that.

And neither can we.

One of the biggest ideas behind my book Nobody Follows a Parked Car is ridiculously simple: movement matters. You cannot lead anybody somewhere while refusing to move yourself.

But movement doesn’t always mean you’re advancing in the direction you expected.

Sometimes movement is learning while you’re waiting. Sometimes it’s fixing the broken feature. Sometimes it’s making another sales call. Sometimes it’s becoming better at your craft while nobody is watching. Sometimes it’s serving faithfully in a place you never planned to be.

Sometimes it’s being Joseph in prison.

Here’s what we miss about Joseph: the prison wasn’t wasted time.

The leadership, discipline, wisdom, relationships, and trust Joseph developed in places he never wanted to be prepared him for the place God was eventually taking him.

Joseph couldn’t see Pharaoh from the prison cell.

He couldn’t see that one day he would be placed over Egypt. He couldn’t see that the skills he was sharpening in obscurity would eventually help save people from famine. He couldn’t see how the pit, Potiphar’s house, prison, the cupbearer, and all those years connected.

He could only see what was in front of him.

So he worked what was in front of him.

That’s faith with work boots on.

I don’t know exactly where DOT Docs ends up. I have a big vision for it. Anybody who knows me knows “small vision” isn’t exactly one of my medical conditions.

But my responsibility isn’t to know every chapter before I build the next page.

My responsibility is to keep moving, keep improving, keep listening to God, keep solving real problems, and keep building what is in front of me.

Same goes for you.

Maybe you’re in a pit right now.

Maybe you’re in Potiphar’s house wondering why you’re working your tail off on somebody else’s dream.

Maybe you’re in prison—not literally, hopefully—but you’re in a season where everything feels restricted and you can’t move the way you want.

Maybe you’ve done everything right and still got kicked backward.

Fine.

What can you build from here?

What can you learn? Who can you serve? What skill can you sharpen? What relationship can you strengthen? What can you fix? What can you create? What responsibility can you absolutely crush while you wait for the next door?

Stop telling God, “I’ll move when You change my circumstances.”

Maybe He’s asking what you’re going to do with the circumstances you’re already in.

Joseph didn’t wait for the palace to become a leader.

He led in the house.

He led in the prison.

And when the palace finally called, Joseph was ready.

Your circumstances can be parked without you becoming a parked car.

So if life feels stalled today, don’t confuse waiting with quitting.

Pray. Listen. Learn. Serve. Fix something. Build something.

Keep moving.

Because nobody follows a parked car—and God may be using the place you desperately want to leave to prepare you for the place you’ve been praying to go.

Take Action

Identify one area of your life that feels stalled. Stop asking only, “How do I get out of here?” Ask, “What can I build here?” Then take one measurable action today: learn something, fix something, call someone, serve someone, or finish something you’ve been putting off.