THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST: GOD INTENDS IT FOR GOOD

GENESIS 50:20

Of course Joseph’s brother’s expected him to try to kill them after their father Jacob died. They had it coming to them; years before they had tried callously to murder him. So they were stunned at what Joseph did when he heard of their fears. First he wept: then he said to them, "Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended if for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (verses 19-20). The worldwide famine would have destroyed them and their families had Joseph not been "sent" to Egypt ahead of them.

Over the years Joseph had gained a perspective on life that is priceless. It is wonderfully captured in the sixteenth century Heidelberg Catechism’s description of the providence of God. "Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth, and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty – all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand."

When Joseph had come to see was that the fundamental issue had not been between him and his brothers, but between him and his God. True, his brothers were scoundrels, but ultimately it was God who gave them permission to act as they did – and to use their evil against him to promote God’s good for all of them! Over the years his conflict with his brothers had been transformed into his wrestling with God – with a glorious result: He was freed of his bitterness. The Catechism says this perspective will make us "patient when things go against us, thankful when things go well, and for the future we can have good confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing will separate us from his love."

This is the fruit of a lifetime of wrestling with God in prayer over the bad things others have done to us. It doesn’t relieve them of their responsibility, but it frees us of our slavery to anger and a victim mentality. Fight them, and the fighting will be endless.