23 July Genesis 42

If all is against you, God is still in control

Genesis 42:35-36 (NIV) As they were emptying their sacks, there in each man’s sack was his pouch of silver! When they and their father saw the money pouches, they were frightened. 36 Their father Jacob said to them, “You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin. Everything is against me!”

The Bible tells us about Jacob, who faced tough times. Jacob thought his son Joseph had been killed by a wild animal. Then, his son Simeon was kept as a prisoner in another country. Jacob was afraid his son Benjamin would be taken away from him, too. Overwhelmed with sadness, Jacob said, “Everything is against me!”

But that wasn’t true. Jacob didn’t know Joseph was alive, and God secretly worked to bring their family back together. Jacob can’t see what our Lord sees. God sees what’s in store for Jacob. He knows the ultimate result of what’s happened will be good. This story shows us that we can trust God even when we don’t understand what’s happening, as in Romans 8:31 (NIV) “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”.

I read this story by Steve Moutria at TorahFamily.org, which beautifully illustrates that things are working for us while we think everything is working against us. “There was a guy shipwrecked on an island. He had made a small hut for him and his few supplies. He began finding wood for a fire on the other side of the island. When searching, he saw smoke rising not far from him. He ran to see what it was. He found his hut burned to the ground with all his supplies. He fell to his knees in utter despair. After hours of staring at the burned hut and supplies, he hears a loud ship horn. He ran to the beach and saw a ship. After being rescued, he asked the crew how they knew he was there. They replied, “We saw the smoke from your fire.”

Romans 8:28 (NKJV) “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose”.

I conclude with the passage from Charles Spurgeon. “At the very moment Jacob felt all these things are against me, God was working out His plan. There was a plan in all this, even when Jacob couldn’t see it or feel it. “If you drink of the river of affliction near its outfall, it is brackish and offensive to the taste, but if you will trace it to its source, where it rises at the foot of the throne of God, you will find its waters to be sweet and health-giving”