06/01/2020
What rain would fall on our field of faith to nourish it, and what wind would blow hard to prune the old limbs from the tree of our belief, if all of life was filled with cool sunny days, and light variable winds? If each day was easy, and replete with every wonderful thing how would we choose to live our life, and what would encourage our faith to grow? Suffering the Cross gave Jesus victory over sin and death, enduring the hardships and injustice of life in the world strengthens our faith, righteousness, and encourages us to love God all the more.
“Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.”
1 Peter 2:18-19 ESV
No employer hires workers to simply do the good, and easy things, and he doesn’t judge his employees based on the tasks they can do without sweating over them, but rather, they are rewarded based on those hard things that require thought, skill, and endurance as they suffer through them. Joseph wasn’t valued by Pharaoh because he simply swept the floors in his palace, but because he was able to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, and saved all of Egypt from famine, and the starvation it brings. Joseph was placed in charge of saving Egypt...
“During the seven plentiful years the earth produced abundantly, and he gathered up all the food of these seven years, which occurred in the land of Egypt, and put the food in the cities. He put in every city the food from the fields around it. And Joseph stored up grain in great abundance, like the sand of the sea, until he ceased to measure it, for it could not be measured.”
Genesis 41:47-49 ESV
Like Joseph God prepares us for the hard things we must do, and to endure the injustices, and suffering, that life brings as we do His will. In the process of God’s preparation of Joseph He increased him in faith, and made him to be wise. He took a young boy who was stripped of all he had by his own brothers, and sold into slavery, then gave him understanding of Pharaoh’s dream, and the ability to save Egypt, and his family.
“So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.”
Genesis 45:4-5 ESV
Joseph understood that all he had endured was orchestrated by God, and he spared his brothers because he saw the hand of God in every hardship that he had suffered through. We too should view the suffering in our lives as opportunities used by God to advance us towards His will for us in some regard; perhaps in our ability to show kindness, to pray, or any number of characteristics such as humility, goodness, honesty, obedience, or to love Him more perfectly. Whatever the tribulation we encounter, the hand of God turns it to good in some way, or has a plan for us... Joseph would never have left home if all had been well there. God prepares the way for us in the good, and the bad we experience.
“My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.”
Proverbs 3:11-12 ESV
We walk through life a step at a time, and learn our lessons of faith as we go. Joseph couldn’t have been a master until he had first learned to serve, and he couldn’t have understood mercy, and forgiven his brothers without having had a reason to forgive them. In everything we do in life, the good, the gentle, and even the unjust, we should serve God, and those He places over us. In every hardship we should look for His hand and let it guide us in our faith.
“that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’”
Acts 17:27-28 ESV
Are we ready to view our life through the eyes of increased faith, and holiness? Are we prepared to serve those who treat us unjustly, and look beyond this injustice to find God’s hand? Whether in feast or famine, life or death; He is with us, and has a gift for us in it. This is God’s will, and His grace in action.
“but he raises up the needy out of affliction and makes their families like flocks. The upright see it and are glad, and all wickedness shuts its mouth. Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast love of the Lord.”
Psalm 107:41-43 ESV
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for every step I take in life. I thank you for the hard rocky climbs, and easy green plains. I thank you for the swamps I must cross, and the dry ground under my feet, and I thank you for the sunny days, and even the storms that rage overhead, because in each step I take you are with me, and leading me on. In every stride forward you bless me with understanding. Help me to endure the hardships by seeking you in them, and help me to give you all the glory for every good thing that tempts me to claim it. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God who uses every breath I take in life to teach me of your love for me. I praise you in the green pastures, and in the barren wastelands. I praise you in the valleys, and from the mountaintops. In all things, and in every place I find myself, I call out your name in praise and thanksgiving. Hear me Father as I worship you, and see me stretched out before you with my mouth in the dust... saying “Have mercy on me Lord as I am but a man, but raise me up, for I am made worthy by your Son Jesus!” Hear my prayers Holy Father, and I pray that they are pleasing to your ears. Hear my voice in hushed tones of humility as I kneel before you, and in loud proclamation of your greatness as I stand before your throne in victory! you are merciful, and your grace abounds; in the arms of Christ I feel your love washing over me in warm embrace! Lead me in obedience, and service to your plan and will for me Father, now, and forevermore.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
Jeremiah 29:11-14 ESV
Rich Forbes