He could have pretended there was no danger. Joseph could have been like the rabbit and reacted in the freeze mode.
Rejecting the freeze mode, he left his coat in her hands. I imagine he initially froze, but feeling desire awakening, he jerked away and fled. Being a man of integrity, he tried to explain. No one would know if he yielded to temptation. One day when he entered the house, she pounced. The problem, she was determined to seduce him. That happened to Jospeh.Īs overseer of all Potiphar owned, he worked in the house and regularly encountered Potiphar’s wife. When everything is going good, the enemy of our soul attacks. He didn’t react in anger or fear but responded with courage and wisdom and the Lord honored him. Joseph never demonstrated a victim mentality. Rather than complain or feel sorry for himself, he embraced life, even though it felt like God had failed him. Joseph had no choice over that but he had choice over his attitudes. Because of Joseph’s attitude, Potiphar chose him as his slave. Potiphar, a commander of men, was a discerner of character. Instead, he chose to believe God was present with him. During the arduous journey to Egypt, he rejected a negative mindset. But choosing to engage with God, he never became slave to the freeze mode. Initially, he probably reacted in the freeze mode. Trauma set him up to freeze like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. He had every reason to hate and become bitter. Thrown into a pit, he was then sold into slavery. In Genesis 37, Joseph was victimized by his brothers knocked about, his coat ripped off him, leaving him unprotected from the cold. Sadly, it sets us up as a perfect target. Confronted by temptation, like the rabbit who couldn’t think clearly, we react as if we are invisible. Where we’ve suffered trauma, often we default to the freeze mode.The rabbit is a perfect picture of that response. What lesson can I learn from him? My first thought was, if I were a bobcat, the rabbit’s choice to freeze when he saw me would have turned him into dinner.
But his flight was erratic as he ran from me and then towards me. Now zigzagging is normal behavior for a rabbit trying to escape. “ What are you doing? Don’t you realize you are supposed to run away? Why are you just staring at me?”īeyond a twitch of his nose, he remained frozen, seeing no need to respond to my questions.ĭetermined to help him act decisively, I leaned forward. Puzzled at his lack of inertia, I began to speak to him. His beady eyes watched as he remained frozen to the spot. There four feet away was a fat, furry rabbit. I strode to wards the hill behind my home the other da y, when I sensed eyes on me and froze. However, when the freeze mode be come s our default reaction to life, we become easy prey to predators and to falling into temptation. Experiencing trauma in childhood, the freeze response was the brain’s reaction to protect us from something we had no control over. If we’re honest, when apprehensive, fearful of making a wrong choice, or not wanting to hurt anyone, we tend to freeze. While camouflage is part of human warfare, it’s not a skill you or I chose to develop.