7.17--Storm Clouds and Silver Paint

(Based on the Joseph story from Genesis and Romans 8:28)

I’ve spent the last 8 weeks working as a summer chaplain at the Albert C. Wagner Youth Correctional Facility, just a few miles up the road from our house. While there, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with young men from all walks of life, not much different than you or me, who simply made a few wrong choices and are now paying the consequences of that. One of the things I’ve been doing is leading a twice-weekly Bible study for anyone interested in reading God’s word together. Most of the guys that attend regularly will adamantly tell you the same thing:

Prison saved their lives.

Now, these gentlemen are serving time for all sorts of acts, ranging from a minor charge like possession of a weapon and going to robbery to assault to manslaughter. Whether or not they are guilty of the crimes is not important to me, and we do not dwell on that part of their lives. I’m there to speak with them about where they are now and where they are going. The only thing that is relevant about their pasts is that they know that they were heading down a bad road, and being arrested and sent to prison saved them from that. One of them, a brother who never misses a Bible study, told me that it wasn’t a cop who arrested him. It was Jesus.

Jesus used a bad situation to save his life.

In our chapter this week, we read through the story of Joseph, son of Jacob. We journeyed with him from Canaan to Egypt after his brothers sold him into slavery. We were there when Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him of sexual harassment and had him imprisoned. We saw how the Lord used him even in prison, so that when Pharaoh struggled with a dream, Joseph was the one called in to interpret it. We rejoiced when Joseph was placed over all of Egypt, just under the Pharaoh himself, and when this led to a reuniting with his family. We moved with Jacob’s household to Egypt and watched them go from barely surviving the 7-year famine to flourishing within it.

And God used the heinous act of Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery to make it all happen.

What do you think of that? Have you ever heard the phrase “everything happens for a reason”? Is that what this story is about?

In my life, I’ve had a number of incidents that have left me feeling helpless, hopeless, empty. Did Andrew’s death my freshman year of college really have to happen to fulfill God’s master plan? Did God really make that mugger stab Kate, causing her to miscarry, so that some higher purpose could be accomplished? Were events like 9/11 and the Holocaust really God-ordained, necessary evils that happened for a reason?

Think about your life. Do we really want to say that the bad things that have happened to you or your loved ones was the will of God?

Friends, I vehemently and whole-heartedly say no! Absolutely not! As we read a couple of weeks ago in chapter 1, God, from the very beginning, gave humanity a choice, instilled within us free will. Knowing that it could lead to us turning away from God, God still gave us the freedom to choose for ourselves, to think for ourselves, to do for ourselves. The sad thing is that, like Adam and Eve, we do not always make the right decisions.

Reuben, Judah, and the other sons of Jacob remind us of this. They chose to throw their brother, Joseph, into a dried well and then to sell him into slavery. Potiphar’s wife chose to lie and falsely accuse Joseph of making a sexual advance upon her. These choices, made by humans, landed Joseph first into slavery and then into prison.

But there is the amazing thing: God took a bad situation and used it to bless God’s people. Potiphar needed a slave, and god guided Joseph, in slavery, to him. God sent Pharaoh a prophetic dream, and Pharaoh needed it interpreted. God gave an imprisoned Joseph the gift to interpret that dream. Jacob knew his family was starving to death, so he sent his sons to Egypt to buy food, and the very person in charge of that food is Joseph.

God did not plan on Joseph going into slavery or prison, but God used both situations as a way to bring about blessings. In the same way, God is able to take a bad situation in your life and use it as a way to bring about blessings for you and those around you. God does not fill your life with storm clouds, but God does paint a silver lining around them.

My brothers at Wagner can attest to that.

And so can I. One of the lowest times in my life was when my good friend, Andrew, died in a motorcycle accident the first day of classes of my freshman year of college. I was reeling from it for months afterward, and could not pull myself out of the depression that had very quickly set in. One day, while I was moping around in my dorm room, I received a message from one of my newfound college friends, checking up on me. She and I weren’t particularly close, but she knew I was having a hard time and wanted to see how I was doing. This girl became one of the few people to which I opened up, one of the few people with which I felt safe talking about my struggles. She helped save me from a very dark and scary time in my life.

And two years later, I asked her to marry me.

I know that God’s heart broke just as hard as mine did when Andrew died. I know that was not a part of God’s plan, and that God in no way made Andrew crash his bike that day. But God took a horrible situation and used it to do something amazing.

Just as God did with Joseph. Just as God did with my friends in prison.

Just as God does for you.

So may you remember that the Lord works all things for the good of those who believe. May you hold firm in the faith that God does not make everything happen for a reason, but God uses even the bad situations to bless God’s people. And may you rejoice that God loves you enough to include you in that number.

Amen.