So, check this out. You are your father’s favorite son and your brothers’ worst nightmare. It doesn’t help that you bring bad reports about them to your father and brag about dreams in which they bow down to you. They plan to kill you, mercifully throw you into a cistern instead, and then not so mercifully sell you to a traveling band of Ishmaelites. One day, you are a favorite son wearing a cool coat; the next day, you’re stripped of everything, a slave on your way to Egypt. All this happens before your eighteenth birthday.

Your time in Egypt begins well. One of Pharaoh’s officials buys you and puts you in charge of his household. Then, one day, you learn that hell has no fury like a woman scorned (that quote was written years later –1697 in “The Mourning Bride” by William Congreve—but you experience it before the play). You reject the advances of your owner’s wife, she responds with false accusations, and before evening, you’re in prison. After a few years, you are no longer a prisoner because you interpret Pharoah’s dreams, and he appoints you as his second-in-command. Long story short, you ultimately save Egypt and your family during a severe famine. But now your brothers are afraid that you will retaliate, so you take the opportunity to explain a deep theological truth.

Genesis 50:20
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

God never wastes the time of his children. While God is not the author of evil, he uses all the events of life for his sovereign purposes. Every rejection, false accusation, unjust treatment…every disappointment, loss, unfulfilled dream, and failure…he uses everything that happens in our lives to mold us into the person he wants us to be. Granted, all the puzzle pieces may not fit as perfectly together as they did in the life of Joseph. You may go to your grave not understanding how some of the pieces fit at all. But the truth remains. God does use all things to work together for good to those who love him. We take that truth by faith and wait for God’s way and God’s timing.

Father, many reading this today are having a hard time believing this promise. Speak deep into their hearts. If you choose not to answer their questions, please deepen their faith. In Christ’s name. Amen.