sort of

"As for you, you meant evil for me, but God meant it for good..." Genesis 50:20... sort of.

In the last chapter of Genesis, a book that saw the ebb and flow of God's creativity, goodness, grace, and mercy yet His power, judgment, and (softly put) His clarification of just who is God, we see a weird scene at the end. The sons of Jacob, Joseph's brother, try to trick Joseph into forgiving them! They clearly got that from their father. However, Jacob's response to them is one that when i first had heard really vindicated a lot of events happening in my life.

"As for you, you meant evil for me, but God meant it for good..." Which is funny that i resonated with this. I really don't think i've had too many people intentionally throw me in a cistern, and trick my dad into thinking i'm dead. But i resonated nonetheless. And many do with this verse! We think, "Oh! What has been bad in my life God WILL use for good in my life!"

But oh how deep my selfishness runs. The rest of the verse says, "but God meant it for good, that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."

Joseph's relationship with God ran so deep that he never once needed vindicated personally. (Actually, he did once try to vindicate himself. And it didn't go as he thought it would. See Genesis 40 and 41. But anyway...) It was more important that God use the whole of his life and his story so that "many should live."

When something bad happens to you or someone tries to bring an aspect of your life (more likely just your day) down, maybe we should have our mind more on the others around us, on the eternal, on the worldwide impact that acting Godly in that moment may have.

If i could just get my eyes off of preserving my own well-being...