365 Days of the Great Names of God, Day 215: God of Joseph

God of Joseph

"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (Genesis 50:20 NIV)

Today's key verse from Genesis 50 is one of my favorite sentences in all of God's story. 

I need to know that God takes hold of what evil grasps in its hands and, with His much mightier hand, turns it entirely around in the direction of good.

But I also need to be aware that this verse drops us in on the end of the story...an ending Joseph did not know when he was in the dark middle of it.

Well before Joseph was able to reassure his fearful brothers of the big-picture outcome of all that had happened, the lies of a wicked woman landed him unjustly in prison. And not for an overnight stay or a few weeks, but for years. And not years in a sentence that had been specified, so that Joseph could mark them off on his cell wall and see in the accumulated tally the light of freedom. No: an indeterminate imprisonment with no defined end. 

I read this story, and I think that it is one thing to endure a hard season when we know that there is a new and better season in sight but quite another when we are not sure when—or, even worse, if—the hardship will ever end.

But what victory would Joseph have forfeited if he'd defected during the waiting?

Joseph did not know what waited for him outside the prison walls, but he did know Who waited with him inside. In the midst of evil, and facing an outcome he did not know, He trusted in the goodness of the One he did know.

"A person who lives in faith must proceed on incomplete evidence, trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse" (Philip Yancey).

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God, I believe you still take what is intended for evil and turn it into good. When I am waiting for that turn-around and am sinking in what I don't know, help me stand firm in faith on the Rock I do know.