Flip the Script: From Evil to Good
Genesis 37:12-28
As Joseph is carted off to a foreign land….what could he be thinking?
What’s true in this moment?• The people who should have loved Joseph, didn’t.• For whatever “crimes” Joseph may have committed in their eyes, the punishment didn’t fit.• Everything about his future is uncertain at the very best, deeply dark at worst. At the flipping point, he’s lost everything except his life.
What situations have you been in that looked just like that?
Genesis 50: 15-21
Notice that both the brothers and God had intentions through Joseph’s story. The brothers MEANT evil & God MEANT good.
The question of ‘WHY?’
-David asked that question “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.”Psalms 22:1-2
-Jesus himself, on the cross, asked that question “About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ).” Matthew 27:46
The bottom line: Hope grows not because we understand the WHY, but because we trust the WHO.
The WHY is about clarity.The WHO is about trust.
Romans 8:28
“For those who love Him”…In a loving relationship there is trust being built.
A prayer to guide us: “Even though….yet I will trust you, Lord.”
Psalms 56:3-4
-“Even though my financial need is great and I don’t see how we will make, yet I will trust you, Lord” -“Even though the future seems uncertain and I don’t know what tomorrow holds, yet I will trust you, Lord” -“Even though I don’t like it, even though I don’t understand it, yet I will trust you, Lord.”