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Prepare Your Heart
To the best of your ability, get rid of all distractions. Take a few minutes to breathe deeply and quiet yourself in the Lord’s presence. Then, ask the Lord to speak to you in this time. Let Him know that you will listen and make whatever adjustments He will reveal to you.
Read God’s Word
A Verse for Today
Slowly and reflectively read the following verse(s) and listen to what God will say to you through His written Word. Consider writing down any insights He reveals to you.
Genesis 45:5 (CSB): “And now don’t be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.”
Reflecting on God’s Word
The story of Joseph is one of my favorites in the Bible. Apparently, God’s Holy Spirit also thought highly of it because it takes up one-fourth of the book of Genesis.
There are so many lessons to be learned from Joseph’s life, but one that rises to the top is God’s sovereignty. Basically, that means that God is in control of every person and every minute detail of the world’s events and orchestrating everything to accomplish His desired end.
This principle is abundantly clear in Joseph’s life. As we read Genesis 37-50, we see how God was working in the actions of people to sovereignly accomplish His divine end—to get Joseph into a position so that God could use him to spare the life of his family in Egypt through which the Messiah would come.
But it’s one thing to know that God’s sovereignty accomplishes His purposes through people and events. It’s quite another to actually be the recipient of unjust or even evil events that God uses.
Joseph could have grown angry and bitter. By the time his brothers were united with him in Egypt, he could have cultivated such an animosity toward them that he would have used his power to kill them all.
How could Joseph endure their injustice and come out better and not bitter? He rested in God’s sovereignty. When he looked at his brother’s evil actions, he didn’t see what they did but what God did. He saw God’s hand orchestrating everything to accomplish His wonderful divine purposes.
Genesis 45:5 (CSB): “And now don’t be grieved or angry with yourselves for selling me here, because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life.”
However, sometimes things don’t work out as well as they did in Joseph’s life. Sometimes, things go in the opposite direction. We could suffer the negative consequences of someone’s unjust actions for the rest of our lives.
Does that mean God is only sovereign when things go well for us? Of course not. Instead, it means that God’s good work may simply not be visible to us. That’s when our trust should kick in. We trust what He is doing even when we cannot see it.
Imagine how our perspective on every single event that happens to us might change if we saw things as Joseph did. Imagine if we cultivated the ability to see our sovereign God working in every detail of our lives to accomplish His good purposes.
Spend Time in Prayer
- Ask God to give you a clearer understanding, from serious Bible study, of what it means that He is sovereign.
- Ask God to help you see every event that takes place around you and to you as something that He either actively willed or passively allowed. God will use each of those things to accomplish His good purposes.
Going Deeper
If you want to dig a little deeper into Joseph’s words, consider reading the following GotQuestions article:
Sharing
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Matt Ellis is the pastor of First Baptist Church in Polk City, Florida (fbcpolkcity.com)
Matt’s Musings 