“It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive. Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name . . . That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still."
- Frederick Buechner,
GENESIS 46-48
JOURNAL
What hits me about Joseph’s story is how impossible it would have looked at the beginning to believe it was going anywhere good.
Because if the Israelites were going to be saved, Joseph had to be sold into slavery. If Egypt was going to survive the famine, Joseph had to be placed exactly where God could raise him up at the right time. The rescue of Jacob’s family and the preservation of an entire nation depended on a chain of events that started in the ugliest way possible.
Jealousy. Lies. Deception. Selfishness.
And the crazy part is that this wasn’t even some powerful family with influence and momentum. This was a lowly family, small in the eyes of the world, broken in all the ways families break. Yet God took that family and turned it into the foundation of something massive. Twelve tribes. A people. A legacy that would shape history and change the world.
It reminds me that God does not wait for us to be clean and impressive before He works. He does not need perfect people or perfect motives. He can take what we meant for harm and still bring good out of it. He can take sin and failure and betrayal, and somehow weave it into a plan that still accomplishes His will.
That does not excuse the sin. It does not make the evil okay. But it shows how powerful God is, and how faithful He is, even when we are not.
Joseph’s brothers tried to destroy a life, and God used it to save lives. They tried to cover their tracks with lies, and God used it to move Joseph into position. What they did in selfishness, God used for deliverance.
That is why faith matters.
Because I will never be able to see everything God is doing in real time. I will not always understand why something had to happen the way it did. I will not always be able to trace the purpose while I am still living inside the pain. But stories like this remind me that God is not limited by our brokenness. He is not stopped by human sin. He is not surprised by betrayal. He is not defeated by chaos.
He is still working. He is still saving. He is still redeeming.
And if God can build something holy out of that mess, then He can redeem mine too.
What hits me about Joseph’s story is how impossible it would have looked at the beginning to believe it was going anywhere good.
Because if the Israelites were going to be saved, Joseph had to be sold into slavery. If Egypt was going to survive the famine, Joseph had to be placed exactly where God could raise him up at the right time. The rescue of Jacob’s family and the preservation of an entire nation depended on a chain of events that started in the ugliest way possible.
Jealousy. Lies. Deception. Selfishness.
And the crazy part is that this wasn’t even some powerful family with influence and momentum. This was a lowly family, small in the eyes of the world, broken in all the ways families break. Yet God took that family and turned it into the foundation of something massive. Twelve tribes. A people. A legacy that would shape history and change the world.
It reminds me that God does not wait for us to be clean and impressive before He works. He does not need perfect people or perfect motives. He can take what we meant for harm and still bring good out of it. He can take sin and failure and betrayal, and somehow weave it into a plan that still accomplishes His will.
That does not excuse the sin. It does not make the evil okay. But it shows how powerful God is, and how faithful He is, even when we are not.
Joseph’s brothers tried to destroy a life, and God used it to save lives. They tried to cover their tracks with lies, and God used it to move Joseph into position. What they did in selfishness, God used for deliverance.
That is why faith matters.
Because I will never be able to see everything God is doing in real time. I will not always understand why something had to happen the way it did. I will not always be able to trace the purpose while I am still living inside the pain. But stories like this remind me that God is not limited by our brokenness. He is not stopped by human sin. He is not surprised by betrayal. He is not defeated by chaos.
He is still working. He is still saving. He is still redeeming.
And if God can build something holy out of that mess, then He can redeem mine too.
43Thus the LORD gave Israel all the land He had sworn to give their fathers, and they took possession of it and settled in it.
44And the LORD gave them rest on every side, just as He had sworn to their fathers. None of their enemies could stand against them, for the LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand.
45Not one of all the LORD’s good promises to the house of Israel had failed; everything was fulfilled.
Joshua 21:43-45
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