Through the Lens of God’s Sovereignty

14 Aug

Through the Lens of God’s Sovereignty

For some time now, my husband and I have been praying for, among others, three friends who are in the middle of cancer treatments and another who is moving farther and farther into dementia. God has called us to be always rejoicing, praying, and thanking God for everything (1 Thess. 5:16-18), all three of which do not come naturally. They require the presence of the Holy Spirit in us. We humans tend to impatience when we can’t see how God is working or what the outcome will be.

That’s why Old Testament Scripture is so very encouraging. Psalms, of course lifts us up to focus on God’s glory, and Job depicts God’s on-going interest and care in the lives of His people in the middle of incomprehensible (to us) trials. And look at Joseph. Throughout his life, he worshipped God in the middle of circumstances that left him seemingly under the control of people who had nothing to do with the God of his fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Even when he refused Potipher’s wife’s advances, it was not for the sake of his owner who had placed control of all he had in Joseph’s hands. “How can I … sin against God?” (Gen. 39:9), he asked.

In prison, Joseph again found himself prospering and in charge of the whole operation. A light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel to his incarceration seemed to appear when Pharoah’s disgraced Baker and Butler asked for his services to interpret their dreams. He proclaimed to both that the interpretation can only come from God. The Baker was executed and the Butler was restored to his position, as was predicted in their dreams (Gen. 40).

The Butler forgot Joseph’s plight in jail, however, until Pharoah also needed someone to interpret his dreams. Joseph again gave God the glory for the interpretation, a warning from God of the upcoming famine (Gen. 41:25). Joseph’s suggested strategy for dealing with the famine so impressed Pharoah, that he made Joseph the most powerful man in the country next to himself. But he was still under the authority and ownership of someone else, separated from his father.

When he revealed himself to his brothers in Genesis 45, their concern for the consequences of selling him to the Midianites in the first place, prompted him to assure them three times that “God sent me to preserve life, … to preserve you a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (Gen. 45:5, 7-8) and that they were not to be grieved by their actions of some twenty years before. In spite of Joseph’s assurances, they continued to remember their depriving him of freedom and family, and expressed concern about what Joseph would do to them after their father, Jacob, died (Gen. 50:15).

Based on faith and past experience, Joseph continued to see events through the lens of God’s sovereignty and again responded with reassurance of God’s call on him regarding his family: “And Joseph said unto them, Fear not for am I in the place of God? But as for you, you thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now, therefore, fear not.” (Gen. 50:19-21a).

God’s call to us is “…Casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:7). Even when we cannot see how God is working in and through our lives and trials right now, we see His sovereignty in action through Scripture, faith, and His past work in answered prayer.