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Read: Genesis 50:15-21
Listen: Genesis 50

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Genesis 50:20

Jacob dies, and his sons fear Joseph’s revenge. They recognize they have done Joseph so much wrong. Joseph has reason and power to harm them (Genesis 50:15). However, he acknowledges God has been working to bring great good. God saw past Joseph’s current situations and decades, even hundreds of years, into the future. God knew Joseph’s family and the eventual nation of Israel, needed Egypt’s safety to survive a famine and grow into a nation. Joseph sees how God used his pain to provide the way for his family’s salvation.

God is not restricted to using good materials to achieve a good end. God has a wide-angle lens on painful situations. We see only the here and now. But God’s vision expands beyond our lifetime into future years and generations. God’s creative work can use bad things for good. We don’t need to deny the pain or grief. But we can believe God sees what we cannot. When we do not see God’s goodness in our day-to-day situations, we can cling to a bedrock faith in God’s creative goodness in hard spaces. The same creative God who worked through Joseph’s story works in ours.

TODAY: Offer a prayer of belief and trust in God in your challenging situations. Pray this prayer out loud and with open hands, “God, I didn’t ask for this. I don’t like this. I don’t understand this. But I trust you in this.”

JESUS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT:

Read Isaiah 56-57. Highlight anything that points to Jesus. Consider how Jesus said those who mourn are blessed and would be comforted (Matthew 5:4).