Not Always a Box of Chocolates

⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! ⁵ And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. ⁶ For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping.⁷ But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.^[a]   --  Genesis 45: 4-10

I love a good story,and there are no stories  much better than the stories of Genesis particularly the story of Joseph and his brothers.    Joseph was a braggart, and no older brother likes a younger brother saying that he is better than you.  Consequently,  sibling rivalry with his brothers leads Joseph to slavery in Egypt,  imprisonment amid false charges of sexual harassment, and eventually to being a member of Pharoah’s court.    Words of  a young Joseph about his brothers bowing down to him come true when the brothers come looking for food from their famished homeland.   My favorite part of the story of Joseph is found in the words of scripture printed above.     While his brothers intended getting rid of  Joseph for evil,  God intended that act for good in using Joseph to save the life of all Israel. 

I am uncomfortable being around people that act as if they have a monopoly on understanding God.   I don’t know about you, but I live by faith not certainty.    While I look at the future with hope,  I do it only able to see so far into the days ahead.    Most of the time,  I only see (as I Corinthians 13 puts it) “through a glass darkly” at the present and the future.  But then I look back at my life  as Joseph did that day as his brothers trembled before him and I see that in the course of human events God working in ways that I did not know and did not understand. 

I loved the movie “Forrest Gump” starring Tom Hanks, but I do not fully agree with the phrase made popular in that movie that says:  “Life is like a box of chocolates, You never know what you are going to get.”    In my life,  I believe there is a God working even when I do not see Him.   Why, he is even working for my good.   I believe that it was more than coincidence that a United Methodist Church was a few blocks down the road when I was a teenager that had a great youth program and a wonderful pastor.   I believe that it was not simple luck that left the last seat at a homecoming dinner immediately in front of the beautiful woman I now call my wife.  I invite you to take a look back over your life, and what you will see is not luck or coincidence, but God working in the ways only he can.   Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  O God, thank you for my life and the ways that you work even  when I do not see.  I believe; help my unbelief; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.