Monday 27 June 2005

God sent me here

So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.” – Genesis 45v8

After a lengthy series of events in which Joseph was dealing with his brothers he finally could bear it no more. How stunned the brothers must have been when he shouted out to them, “I am Joseph!”

They were already felling guilty about what they had done, unknowingly they had already fulfilled the dream about bowing now to him. Now the man who literally held their lives in his hand was revealed and the same teenager they had sold into slavery. I am sure that they assumed that their lives were done for.

Yet Joseph did not respond at all like we might expect. Before they could even fully comprehend what he had said he told them not to be afraid, that God had arranged all that had happened to him. He was able to see God’s hand working in the whole situation. God had promised to make a great nation of Israel. Famine had struck their land and they very possibly would have been wiped out by famine if not for the hand of God in directing Joseph. He even explained to them that they were not the ones who had sent him to Egypt, that God had done it for a purpose.

In all of the events of our lives today God also has a purpose. We may not see it from this side, but we can rest in the fact that a sovereign God is in control and we must learn to rest in that knowledge and look forward to the day when we will see things from the same perspective that Joseph did.

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