Perceiving God in Circumstances

PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
1 Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.

3 Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.

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.

8 “So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. 9 Now hurry back to my father and say to him, ‘This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don’t delay. 10 You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me—you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have. 11 I will provide for you there, because five years of famine are still to come. Otherwise you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute.’

12 “You can see for yourselves, and so can my brother Benjamin, that it is really I who am speaking to you. 13 Tell my father about all the honor accorded me in Egypt and about everything you have seen. And bring my father down here quickly.”

14 Then he threw his arms around his brother Benjamin and wept, and Benjamin embraced him, weeping. 15 And he kissed all his brothers and wept over them. Afterward his brothers talked with him. (Genesis 45:1-15, NIV)

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15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept.

 

18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.

 

19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. (Genesis 50:15-21, NIV)

 

 

REFLECTIONS:

God is present and working in the circumstances of this world. We have only to train ourselves to see him, not only in the world around us, but also in our own hearts, our own lives. Yesterday, we suggested that if we have never consciously listened for God speaking to us through another person, his voice may be a little hard to hear at first. The same is true for perceiving God's presence in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Sometimes we recognize his hand almost instantly in an event, or within a short time; other times it may take years, even decades, to realize that God was in a situation and was working in our lives the whole time.

 

And sometimes we completely miss God's workings in our lives because we just aren't paying attention. We are like the stubborn mule in a well-known story. When the farmer hit the mule over the head with a big board, the neighbor asked him what he was doing. The farmer replied, "Well, first I have to get his attention!" The good news is that we can train ourselves to pay close attention. In The God Hunt, Karen Mains describes how she taught her children to say "I spy God" whenever they realized that God was doing something in their life or someone else's life. Try the same thing today as you go about your daily routine. Every time you "spy God," write it down or make a mental note of it. You might want to put out a few sticky note reminders (such as "Spy God" or "Keep Looking") on the door of your home, on your bathroom mirror, or on the visor of your car, just to make sure you keep up the search. Don't limit yourself to what seems extraordinary or miraculous; also seek God in mundane routines, small details, something that seems like a coincidence or events that just bring a smile to your face. 

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We can learn several things about God's ability to work through circumstances from Joseph's story. First, seeing the hand of God is difficult; we do it best in hindsight. Many of us are adept at seeing the hand of God in our blessings: celebrating a special event, recovering from an illness, getting a promotion or a raise. But in other corners of our lives we can be blind to God's subtle workings. When we are fired from a job or turned down by the college of our dreams, we don't see the new and meaningful opportunities that will come our way. Joseph wasn't thinking at the bottom of the pit that his time there was a sign that God was working in his life. It was only when he looked back on his life that he clearly perceived the hand of God in circumstances that had seemed so cruel at the time.

 

Second, God can work through wonderful and awful circumstances. Joseph's treatment in Egypt, as a slave in Potiphar's house and an inmate in Pharaoh's prison, was horrific. The separation from his father and family was terrible for a young man to endure. To say that God is at work in the circumstances in our lives is not to say that everything is ordained by God. The story does not say that God compelled Joseph’s brothers to sell him into slavery, only that God was able to work for good within those circumstances. Joseph’s brothers had free will, which allowed them not only to make good decisions, acting with unselfishness, courtesy, and humility, but also to fight among themselves and to be ugly to God and to their brother. In today's world we would do well to remember that many of the horrific circumstances we see around us are created by human hands, not divine. Yet God still works, even within the most difficult circumstances that we bring about. (See CS Lewis's The Problem of Pain for a full discussion of God's role in the world.)

 

Third, even though we often can't perceive God in circumstances while we are going through them, we must maintain our faith that God will bring us out on the other side. By saving his family from starvation, Joseph preserved not only people who would become a great nation, but the ancestors of Jesus. Training ourselves to look for God and his work in our lives helps us know that even if we cannot see his hand in our present circumstances, he is in charge, not us. 

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In the biblical story of Joseph's life, we see the truth of Paul's statement: "We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). God truly is working at all times in our lives, if only we have eyes to see him. We must challenge ourselves to train our senses to see God. By God's grace, we must strive to praise God for everything in our life, even the things that seem less than praiseworthy. We must continually seek to play "I spy God." Every glimpse we get into God's activity around us better equips us to join him in his kingdom work.

 

But there are still times when we cannot perceive God's hand. Often these are times of challenge and difficulty, when we can see God's role only with hindsight. When our circumstances are unfavorable, when the world seems to be set against us, we have to remember that this does not mean that God is not with us working for good. God can work through all kinds of circumstances, good and bad. The most important thing is to have faith that God's hand is with us, even if we cannot feel it. An inscription found on the cellar wall in Germany where Jews hid from Nazis describes faith of this kind: "I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining. I believe in love, even when feeling it not. I believe in God even when he is silent."

 

 

POINT OF ACTION:

Take time today to record the ways God has been present in the circumstances of your life, past and present. You might begin by focusing on a certain period of your life, for example: childhood, high school, college, courtship, parenthood, your first job, retirement. Pull out some old photo albums or old journals to help you remember the people and places that touched your life at that time. Try to contrast the way you felt about events at the time and the way you look at them now, with the advantage of hindsight.

 

 

PRAYER:

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
    teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth, and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all day long.

“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!”
    Your face, Lord, do I seek.

Give ear to my words, O Lord;
    give heed to my sighing.
Listen to the sound of my cry,
    my King and my God,
    for to you I pray.

 

WHO AM I?
I am Tres Sansom, and I can honestly say I am thankful for the ways God has used my paralysis to teach me things about his nature and character. There's so many things that he has shown me over the last several years, things that I likely never would have learned except through this experience. But, also, I'm thankful for the ways that God has used other experiences to teach me about himself: my seemingly endless years of singleness, periods of loneliness, the struggle to have biological children, and others. Most of these experiences have been hard to endure, but many of them have been incredibly pleasant. Experiences such as my parents' faithfulness and compassion in caring for my physical needs, my courtship and marriage with Kate, our friends from church helping to clear our property before the building of our house, fostering and adopting our children, and others.