You Meant It for Harm, God Meant It for Good (Genesis 50:20)

All right. So, oh, I I don't have the clock on behind me. Well, welcome to the blank screen. Haha, welcome to uh 515 Devotional. Uh my name's Dwayne, and uh if you're new, everybody is muted. It's the It's the great thing of of uh of technology, but when we end, we're going to open it up to comment or suggestion or question, and and if you just look right down at the bottom of your screen, you'll have the ability to unmute yourself. Um All right, so today uh we we've been talking we we talked about not looking back, and we've talked about looking forward.

And I don't remember who it was, but someone had brought up uh dealing with past hurts. And I didn't want to overlook that, and I answered it a little bit uh during that that uh that moment, but I want to cover it in a in more detail and tell you what God has to say about it. So, let me share the scripture with you. Uh let's see here. Share scripture. All right, so we're going to be in Genesis. We're going to go way back to the beginning. This happens to be the last chapter in Genesis. Uh this is uh uh chapter 50 and verse 20, and this is the story of Joseph.

If you've None of you have read the story of Joseph, uh that needs to be on your on your to-do list uh quickly um to read the story of Joseph. I think someone is on here, and somehow it's not muting them. I think that might even be my wife. Very strange. Um All right, so so let me cover uh uh a little bit of the backstory for Joseph if you if you don't know the story. So, Joseph is Joseph's got his brothers, they sell him into slavery unjustly. Uh he sits in a slave uh quarters, he's then sold to Potiphar. He's uh he he has a a good life with Potiphar, he gets accused unjustly of of of some wrongdoing, gets gets gets thrown in a prison unjustly.

Uh he helps out uh someone in the prison, uh and they ask him to just, you know, put a good word in for me to the king to get me out of here. That guy forgets him, he spends more time in prison. Finally, he gets out of prison and he becomes number two in all of Egypt. And so, uh how does that have to do with past hurts and moving forward? And I think this verse really is what talks about it. And we even talked about it the other day. And so, let me read it. So, here the writer says, "You intended to harm me." So, he calls it out. He He gives the He gives it a name.

He He Joseph doesn't ignore it. He doesn't let it go. He doesn't go, "Well, I It wasn't really all that bad." He calls it out. "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." So, as we, um as we talk about this scripture, uh often times when we go through something difficult, a a a a really tough season, we we've been hurt. Uh my wife and I have lived through this. We have our We have our own story. And and I was hurt I was hurt in a big way. And it's easy for everyone who gets in that spot to think about you know, there's this middle There's There's this middle group.

You can go, "Well, uh I know it's going to get better. God's going to make this better for me." Or it's going to be, "I don't know why he's doing this to me." And so, we've got these things that go on in our head about why this I'm I'm Lord, I'm listening to you. Why is this bad happening to me? Well, Joseph did nothing wrong. Zero. Yet, for the first 10 or 15 years of his life, uh he had a lot of misery. And if we look at this text, it says, "But God intended it for good." It doesn't say, "But God intended it for good for me. It's not what it says.

That's not the purpose of any of it. And often times we get so caught up in God, what what is this about me? This wasn't about Joseph at all. God didn't do this for his comfort or for his promotion or or for or for the clothes that he could wear or the wives and children he could have. That's not why that harm happened. That harm happened for God's purpose. So you've got two groups who are weaving this this thing. You have his brothers and you have Potiphar and you and you have the jailer keeper who are weaving this thing and and with the same material God is weaving this other thing.

And what's always going to win out is what God's purpose is. And so what was the purpose? The purpose was for the saving of many lives. It had nothing to do with Joseph. Nothing. And so when we have that hurt and it's usually someone that's hurt us. That's usually what we're talking about. When we have that hurt, what did Joseph do? Joseph never left sight of God and God's purpose and he's he calls it. You intended to hurt me. But God intended it for good. So what does he do? He takes the weight off of himself. I don't have to get I don't have to pass judgment.

I don't have to pass punishment. I don't have to do anything. That's for God to do. God asks me to forgive. That's what I'm going to do. And then I'm going to let God's purpose and plan take over. I'm going to let God's judgment of this story unfold. And so here Joseph says to them again, you intended to harm me. He calls it out, but God intended it for good to accomplish what's now being done. The saving of many lives. And that was specific to this story and to what Joseph's doing. Your story is going to be very different. All of our stories are going to be very different, but God never wastes the hurt.

He's got a purpose and a plan. It may not be for your comfort. He's not interested in that. He's not interested in your comfort. He's interested in your character. And so, you you may not get to some peaceful place. That's it's this story is not about you. It's about you fulfilling and serving your purpose that God has intended and designed for you. And along the way, if that person hurt you, call it out. But, remember that there's a purpose on the other side of this. There's a place and a plan that God's got intended just for you. You you may not be rich, and you and it may not increase your comfortability, but it's going to solve and it's going to be for a purpose that God has intended solely for you and your life and while you're walking on this earth.

So, don't ignore the harm. Uh Joseph didn't. He called it out. Spelled it, pointed right out. And and this very particular verse isn't just about his brothers. This very particular verse is at the end of chapter 50. Uh Joseph's already already saved the Israel nation in Egypt from starvation. His his for 17 years they've been been alive, and his father's been there. Now his dad has died, and his brothers are concerned that they were given favor and and forgiveness because of their father. And now they were concerned that now that his dad is gone, that Joseph may turn the tide and may want to punish them.

And so, read this chapter. Read read the story of Joseph, and you see exactly how he honors God in everything he does. All right. So, I'm going to open it up. Thoughts, comments, suggestions, questions. Let's fire away. All right. I have one. What is the purpose of God to when a child is being abused? What's the purpose of God letting this happen? The child is innocent and what's the purpose? What good can come out of that? That's a That's a That's a great question and that's a and that's a tough challenging one. And I don't and I'm not I'm going to give you the same answer I've already given you.

And that is God has a purpose. We He says his ways are higher than our ways. We don't I don't know what that purpose is for. That purpose may be for that child to be able to help heal other people walking through Christ 20 years from now. We we have no idea. We don't know what that's for. But God's never going to He's never going to waste a hurt. What Why abuse happens, God didn't create that. That's the enemy. That's sin. God's not God's not creating that sin. God is saying this happens because you live in a broken world because you disobey. But I'm going to use that circumstance and that situation for my purpose.

And somewhere down the road, God has a plan and a purpose for that child or the people that are around that child or maybe even for the perfect the person that was perpetrating the crime against that child. That's right. We don't know. Anybody else? Yes. And Jackie, I don't I don't know if that that helps at all. This is a tough thing to do, especially when we're bringing up children being hurt. Very tough. Yeah, it doesn't I I you know, I I don't know how to handle something like that and that's what's going on with my faith. I know it's not God's fault.

I'm not blaming God. But it kind of comes off as God is kind of cruel. No, God didn't do it. That's the enemy. That's Satan that that has a hold of that. But God's going to use whatever is in that moment for his good. Yeah. And that of course this was the guy when you bring up children, the topic can go a long and we can go into a lot of different directions. And at the end of the day, it's not what I said, it's what scripture says. God says that everything is going to end up for his purpose, not for the enemy's purpose. We all know the end, right?

I won't I won't spoil it for you, but we win. And so, everything that happens, God is going to use for his his good his his purpose and for his glory. He's going to take what the enemy defiles and makes it dirty and nasty. And at the end, he's going to make it for his purpose and for his glory. All right. We're out of time. Thought um Uh so, let's let's just bow our heads in prayer. We'll close out. And And again, if there's somebody that needs prayer, on the website, we have a spot for prayer requests. Please, go in there and fill it out. If you have a question or something that happened here and you you didn't get quite the answer that you wanted to, fill it out.

And then And those will come to me and we can have conversations afterwards as well, too. All right, let's bow our heads. Father, thank you so much for today. Father, thank you to to know that that that you It doesn't matter what it is, Father, you have a purpose and a plan for our lives. You have And your purpose and your plan always wins out. Uh we we focus on what the enemy does because it's the ugly nasty thing that's in front of us, but but ultimately, at the end of the day, your purpose and your plan And we may never even see that. We we may never We may never on this side get to see what the purpose and plan for that that evil was that that happened.

But we know a promise from you is that it's going to take place and your purpose and your plan will will reign and prevail. And so, Lord, I pray that that that even though again, that even though that we may not understand it, we we we may struggle with that, Father. We just know that we need to rely on you and in your word and in your instruction, Father, on how we should move forward. Father, we pray for uh children all over the all over the world. We we know that child abuse is real. We we know there's so many different levels of it, whether it's physical or verbal, sexual.

Father, we we know that it exists. We know that there is absolute evil in this world. And Lord, we know that you are still ruler of all. And and Father, we just pray for those children wherever they're at that that that they would come to know you, that they would they would not allow that that evil to overtake them, Father, through their adult lives. We pray for that. Father, we pray for everybody on this call for those past hurts that have happened, Father, that they can name it and that they can understand and know that there's a purpose for that and that and that and that they have a you have a purpose for their lives.

Father, so we pray for that. Lord, watch over us today, guide us, direct us. Give us the courage and strength to take a tough subject like this, Father, and to be able to go search scripture and meditate on that so that so that we have a we have peace about about about you and how this relates to us. Father, we love you today. We thank you. We praise you. And as always, in your son Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right, all. We'll see you guys tomorrow.

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability.