Ok, so I don't mean to rehash what I just wrote on last week, so I will make my best attempt not too :) However, this morning, as I was getting ready to read the Bible for some devotional time, I had a very distracted mind. A decision I need to make in the next few days that I continue to waiver back and forth on, back and forth on, back and forth on.....it's beginning to make me a little sea sick.....is taking up my emotional energy. So, as I sat down to hurry-up-and-read-so-that-I-can-get-on-with-my-day-because-it-has-started-out-extra-ordinarily-lazy-and-it-is-10:20-and-I-haven't-even-begun-to-start-on-my-duties-for-the-day-and-I-didn't-figure-much-could-possibly-be-spoken-to-me-anyways-through-Genesis 50.....take a deep breath in. That was a really long run on sentence. Verse 20 jumped out at me.
"Ye indeed meant evil against me; God meant it for good, in order that he might do as it is this day, to save a great people alive."
It is all about perspective. So many times, I assume the "bad" things in my life must all be an attack from Satan. I'm not saying some aren't. However, I think I may give him a bit too much credit and not enough credit to God for perfectly orchestrating my life. Sometimes, bad things in our lives, are for our good. That is a hard one to swallow and there may be some who read this and decide that Melody Wilson has officially fallen off her rocker. But isn't that what this verse says?
The thing you did to me that you meant to hurt me with, God meant it for good. It was God's plan all along.
I can hear it now, because the same questions are rolling around in my head....what about rape? What about murder? What about children dying before they have a chance to grow up? What about.....? I don't know. I don't have answers to those questions. Those hard, gut wrenching, events that break our hearts and our lives in two. They don't make any sense. They hurt. I wish I had a good answer. I am not saying all of those hard times in our lives are from God.....or maybe they are.....I don't know. We like to say they are not. It is easier to wrap our brains around that and to blame Satan for all the bad. All the gut wrenching events. All the heart break.
But this verse....this verse....draws me to another perspective. What was meant to hurt me, God all along meant it for good....and that echoes through my heart. Meant it for good, God meant it for good.
I can spend countless hours dissecting, ruminating, trying to wind my way through a maze of making sense of seemingly senseless acts. Broken lives. Hard situations. Bad things. But I wonder, if that pondering is the bigger ploy of Satan. The event, because it causes pain in my life, provokes me to try to understand it. It distracts me from the bigger picture. It takes my mind off of Christ and thrusts it onto the circumstance, my feelings, and onto Satan. It makes me question a sovereign God, who moments before the hard event happened, I would have been saying, "God is good! My life is in His hands and He is in control!" Does God go suddenly out of control when the bad things come? Is He suddenly now against me and no longer working all things together for my good?
I marvel at Joseph. He was as imperfect as me. I know this, because he was human, just like me. But, somehow, in all of that human nature, Joseph had a way of stepping outside of his situations, even hard ones that made no sense, that tore his heart in two, and instead of spending time trying to unravel the craziness of the event, make sense of it, or even figure out who to blame: God or Satan, he did something else. He took his eyes off the circumstances and said, "God has a plan and it is for our good."
That statement doesn't take away the tears or the pain. It doesn't undermine it or make them illegitimate. It's ok to feel. It's ok to cry. It's ok to not understand. It's ok to have anger. It's ok to be real with God about how you are feeling. Believe it or not, He can handle it. But I am challenged by this, instead of trying to spend the time figuring it all out, what would happen if I came to that place sooner of saying, "God has a plan and it is for my good." It doesn't really matter then, whose fault it is that I am in pain or that I didn't get my way, or that my life isn't going as planned, or that something tragic happens because no matter what there is a simple and quiet truth in which I can rest in...."God has a plan and it is for my good."
I am not sure I have my brain wrapped around this idea yet and in typing this I have found no answers. I can't explain away the bad things in life and I can't say why bad things happen and I know that a statement like, "but God has a plan" doesn't magically wipe away the pain someone might be walking through right now, because the pain is real and hard. But that verse, leads me to a truth, and that truth sets my eyes on Him.
I am definitely not finishing this posting with happy, giddy, feelings...rather a pondering. A question and a challenge to myself has been raised. How will I respond in the face of trial, temptation, and pain. What perspective will I choose? Whose face will I decide to focus on? Whose voice will I listen too? What will I choose to apply to my life: Satan's lies or God's truth?
It brings this section of scripture to mind and I will end this posting with it:
Hebrews 11:32-Hebrews 12:3-
And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection; and others were tortured, not accepting their release, so that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.
And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised,because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect. Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
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