Focus!

God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors. [Genesis 45.7]

Talk about focus!

If we could only see our trials as stepping stones in the fulfillment of God's will, perhaps then we could have a better attitude about then like Joseph did.

Because we are descendants of Adam, it is hard not to attribute our difficulties in life to sin. After all, Deuteronomy 28 almost exhaustively describes the curses for disobedience that can certainly be correlated to Joseph's hardships.

So, how do we navigate the hardships in our lives? How do we know if we are suffering for our own sin or because God is sending us to a greater cause like Joseph? Let's not be hasty in answering these questions!

Ultimately, every hardship in life is due to sin. This truth should serve to keep us humble. However, faith cannot be overlooked in its importance. Faith believes God's promises. The essence of all God's promises can be summed up in one word: forgiveness. It is forgiveness that makes every blessing possible. Think about it... there would be no need for a promise of blessing if sin had not robbed man of that blessing. In the midst of man's fallen and cursed condition, God offers the promise of restoration to blessings.

In studying this out just a bit, let's look deeper in this passage from the aforementioned Deuteronomy 28:

“If you refuse to listen to the LORD your God and to obey the commands and decrees he has given you, all these curses will pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed. These horrors will serve as a sign and warning among you and your descendants forever. If you do not serve the LORD your God with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received, you will serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you. You will be left hungry, thirsty, naked, and lacking in everything. The LORD will put an iron yoke on your neck, oppressing you harshly until he has destroyed you. [Deuteronomy 28.45-48]

It appears there might be a critical clue in the passage above about how to navigate the difficulties in life: to serve the LORD with joy and enthusiasm for the abundant benefits you have received... It kind of sounds like the whole "glass half-full" or "glass half-empty" analogy.

While it is entirely possible that Joseph could have been a bratty braggard and "had it coming" as far as the treatment he received from his brothers, we have record that Joseph, regardless, kept his focus: God has sent me ahead of you to keep you and your families alive and to preserve many survivors.

What does this tell us? First, we should understand that we are all accountable for our own actions and, like my grandfather always said, "if you make you bed hard, you will have to lay in it." But we should also understand there is a way of humility that, even in the midst of hard times (whether brought on by ourselves or the indiscretions of others) remains humbly focused on God's plan for our lives and makes us see the abundant benefits He has given. This is true humble faith: to endure hardships without losing focus of God's plan. It will require reflection, repentance and resolve: reflection to contemplate and understand the hardship, repentance for sin (because all have sinned), and resolve to believe God has a plan and "I am part of it."

The bottom line is this: we cannot let sin, ours or the sins of others, to distract us from God's plan.

Father, no doubt my own sins have landed me in bad situations more than I could even elaborate on here - may You never find me anything but repentant in this. But also, may You find me full of joy and enthusiasm for the benefits You have given me and Your plan always at work in me. So be it.