How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting
Post 34: Life Is Bad, But God Is God
Joseph’s Story
Joseph uses “intended” both for his brothers’ plans and God’s purposes. The Hebrew word has a very tangible sense of to weave, to plait, to interpenetrate as in the weaving together of fabric to fashion a robe, perhaps even a coat of many colors.
It was also used in a negative, metaphorical sense to suggest a malicious plot, the devising of a cruel scheme. Other times the Jews used intended to symbolically picture the creation of some new and beautiful purpose or result through the weaving together of seemingly haphazard, miscellaneous, or malicious events.
Life Is Bad, But God Is Good
“Life is bad,” Joseph admits. “You plotted against me for evil. You intended to spoil or ruin something wonderful.
“God is good,” Joseph insists. “God wove good out of evil,” choosing a word for “good” that is the superlative of pleasant, beautiful. That is, God intended to create beauty from ashes. Joseph discovers healing through God’s grace narrative.
Further, he offers his blundering brothers tastes of grace.
“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. For two years now there has been a famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. 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” (Genesis 45:5-8).
Grace Narrative
Amazing! I hope you caught the words. “To save lives,” “to preserve,” “by a great deliverance.” That’s a grace narrative, a salvation narrative. Had God not preserved a remnant of Abraham’s descendents, then Jesus would never have been born.
Joseph uses his spiritual eyes to see God’s great grace purposes in saving not only Israel and Egypt, but also the entire world.
I hope you also caught Joseph’s repetition. “God sent me.” “God sent me ahead of you.” “It was not you who sent me here, but God.” Joseph sees the smaller story of human scheming for ruin. However, Joseph perceives that God trumps that smaller scheme with His larger purpose by weaving beauty out of ugly.
Life hurts. Wounds penetrate. Without grace narratives, hopelessness and bitterness flourish. With a grace narrative, hope and forgiveness flow and perspective grows.
Weaving Truth Into Life
Join the journey again the next two days as we weave truth into life—showing how to use weaving in the dailyness of real life.
