Welcome to another podcast of Struggling Well. We're so glad you're here. And Jimmy mentioned last week that we have a new website and we're going to keep reminding you for a couple of weeks. We'd love you to go and see the podcast. Oh, nope, not the podcast. You can't see it because it's on the airwaves, but we'd love you to go and see the website. It's www. tandemspirituality. com. So, please go look at it. there should be a place there that you can contact us, share it with your friends. Our prayer is that we will get more opportunity to share what it is to struggle well and to share the gospel. So, we would love for you to look at it and like I said, if you want to let us know what you think about it, that would be great. this morning it is morning here where we are at in studio A. Jimmy has a couple of thoughts and so I'm going to let you take it away.
Yeah. you know, one of the word of God is a fascinating book and we're told and we know it's alive. and active and sharper than any two-edged sword. It has the way to it has the ability to transform our lives as we read through it. But there's different styles of literature throughout the Bible. And one of the styles that to me is fascinating is the narrative portions of scripture when it's telling the story of God's journey with people down through the ages. And it's easy to look back at that and see how God uses a situation. Not so easy sometimes in our own lives to see how he uses situations. And one of the places that has recently fascinated me is all the way back in the book of Genesis and in the story of Joseph. it occupies the last from about the 37th chapter all the way through to the end of the book of Genesis story and it's Joseph's life would be one that none of us would say we'd sign up for well in parts of it but he comes into the family. He's the youngest of all his brothers of his other 11 brothers and his dad Jacob Israel I think he can take a lot of issue with how he makes it clear he's the favorite
that Joseph is the favorite he was in his old age when Joseph comes into his life and the interesting thing is at the end of the I guess it's the fourth verse his brothers Joseph's brothers hated him and they couldn't even speak peacefully to him. So they sensed and knew the father's favoritism and they hated Joseph because of it and he couldn't even speak civily to him. Now the interesting thing is at least in the narrative in scripture there's no sense that the dad Jacob jumps in and goes, "Hey guys, this isn't right. We're going to take care of this." And so they hate him. And then Joseph has these dreams which basically say, "Hey, I'm going to rule over you all and you're going to bow down to me. Well, that doesn't do much for the relationship. Yeah. And they hate him even more to the point that they get to the place that they're ready to kill him. One of the brothers steps in and says, "Well, we can't do that. We don't want blood on our hand." So, they throw him into a pit. They sell him into slavery. He ends up in Egypt. And their life continues on for Joseph. Again, it starts well until the wife of this his master there in Egypt accuses him of coming on to her sexually and Joseph gets thrown into prison. And so then he's in prison for a while and he befriends some people in prison and says, "Hey, when you get out, remember me to the Pharaoh." And they don't do that. And then it just goes on and on. And so the whole thing continues. Joseph's life is a train wreck, humanly speaking. But in the whole thing, God is at work. And Joseph comes to the end of it all. And he says this to his brothers in the end of chapter in chapter 50. But Joseph said to them, "Do not fear, for I am in the place, for I am in the place of God. As for you, you meant evil against me. God meant it for good to bring about that many people would be kept alive as they are today." And it's that sense that God was there the whole time. God was working the whole time. Joseph had the ability in the end of the day to see that this was done in God's plan, which is the greater picture than his individual life. And yet I find today, Suzi, that so many people when life doesn't go the way they want it to go, when life isn't moving in the direction they think it should, when they don't think it's fair, one of the first things they'll say is, "Where is God in all of this?" And they fail to realize that their story is just fitting into a larger story that God is telling.
Oh, that's that being reminded of Joseph's story kind of hits me in the throat because h I think about the many times in my life in our life in the lives of people that we love where there's this it almost feels like God is in and out in and out like there's he's in things are good oh man he's out because life is not good I've been thrown into a well where's God end up in the Pharaoh's household, things are going better. God is good. Up and down, up and down. And that's not consistent with the characteristics of who God is according to his word. But when we look at it through human eyes, we see the up and down part of it because we want God to be consistently doing obviously well. Now, I said that wrong. Doing good for us. We don't like the times when it feels like he is absent. And that's I think that's what makes it so difficult is you're going through a time in your life and you think this is awful and then maybe a couple of years down the road or a couple of years prior things were better and it's like God I can't figure you out. I can't track you.
Yeah. And so it's that sense of we don't understand the way life is going and we are quick to blame when things aren't going well. We're quick to blame God in his absence. or that he has forgotten about us or that he has left us. And because we see blessing as God's presence in our lives to make sure that life unfolds the way we want it to unfold.
Yeah.
And so we get again I'm not I don't want to equate our culture with the culture that Joseph grew up in, but there is a sense that people have felt all along when life goes well, it's because I'm obedient, because I'm doing the things God wants me to do. And when I do those things and life doesn't go well, then I wonder why it's happened.
It's hard to maintain the bigger picture or as Larry Crab used to say, the larger story. But there's a larger story going on for the whole world, for everyone that God created. There's that meta narrative that started in Genesis and goes through Revelation. One story being told and I'm just a part of that story.
Yeah. And it's and so in the 45th chapter when Joseph's brothers first see him and I'm sure there's a certain fear, Joseph says to them, "So it was not you who sent me here." Well, they're the ones who put him in the pit and sold him into the Midionite slavers. He said, "It's not you who sent me here, but God. He made me the father to Pharaoh." So Joseph has a handle on the fact that there's a story that God has been telling and he sees God. Did I do I think he saw God in every moment of that story? I don't know that he did or he didn't, but he has an ability to see that God is at work all the time. And what we can hold on to in the promises that God has made is he'll never leave us. He'll never forsake us. I
I think something that's important here is when you come to the word, you just can't dive in and out in and out and take a verse here and take, you know, a section here. in order for us to even get not close, I don't know how to describe this, but to have a better understanding of who God is, we have to know his word. Let me pause right now and just say that our dog is driving us crazy. Gus is, sweet Gus is a diva and he needs to be touched pretty much at all times. So, what he does is he sticks his big head under your arm and then snorts a lot. That is not me, Tim, or Jimmy. snorting. That is Gus. And at some point, we will put his picture on our website so you can see. And there might be underneath his face a for sale sign. We don't know. I wish he could speak because he's really cute. But anyway, what we struggle with is we don't understand what God is doing. But here's the kicker, and I know this is true in my life. I don't know him well enough to trust what he's doing because is I want him to respond according to my idea of who he should be. And so I put my own theology in there that God should do A, B, and C. Very linear. And when he doesn't move according to my plan, then I question him, which is so absurd because I need to be questioning myself because I have this crazy plan that he never said he would do.
Yeah. And so as you think about as you get the chance to read through stories of people's lives in scripture and you get to see how God interacted there. Take away from this for you in your life. Can you trust him? Do you know him well enough to trust him even when life doesn't seem to be unfolding the way it should?
We hope this has helped you or intrigued you or challenged you in some way. have a great week.