Read: Genesis 50:20:
You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.
When life seems to be throwing an endless stream of curveballs and difficult circumstances, the temptation to either quit – or get frustrated with God – is high. It isn’t easy to hold on to faith when everything around us is crumbling. We may question why God isn’t intervening, why people of other or no faith seem to be having an easier ride than we are. In the storms of life, God can seem distant and uncaring, and our perception of Him as our loving Heavenly Father can be challenged.
What do we need to do when we’re feeling this way? Ironically, the solution to the problem is probably the very last thing we feel like doing! When our faith is shaken, we need to fix our eyes on God, even when He feels distant, even when we feel let down, even when we feel abandoned, even when we want to have a tantrum and demand to know why He hasn’t stepped in and fixed our problems.
The strength of our faith is a matter of perception. How do we view God in our storms compared to how we view Him when life is going smoothly? The fact is that God never changes, never moves away from us, never leaves nor forsakes us. Our storms challenge our faith – so in those circumstances, we need to shore up our defences, strengthen our faith muscles, by reminding ourselves of all the ways that God has been faithful in the past – in our lives and in the lives of others. His solutions to our problems might not be the solutions that we want, but we can put our trust in the fact that God is always working things for our good.
Joseph endured a lot of storms in his life. He was attacked by his brothers, sold into slavery, thrown into prison for something he didn’t do, and forgotten by the butler who promised to remember him. If anyone had a reason to doubt God, to question His trustworthiness and faithfulness, it was Joseph. But Joseph chose faith over doubt – and in the end was able to say to his brothers, “What you meant for harm, God turned it around in the end, and saved people through me.” For over 12 years, Joseph waited for God to turn his situation for good, and God came through. It was a long wait, but Jospeh stayed the course, held on during the stormy days and nights when God must have seemed distant and uncaring. Joseph waited for his ‘but God’ moment, and it came, in the end, and it was above and beyond expectations. God didn’t just lift Joseph out of his storm, He elevated him to lofty heights of authority. Joseph must have wondered if that moment would ever come, but it did.
Your storms won’t last forever. Stay the course. Hold on. Keep praising God in the storms and choose faith over doubt. Your ‘but God’ moment will come.