Focal Passage: Genesis 50:15-26
One of the mountain top verses of the Old Testament is “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, the saving of many lives.” A transformative verse for me.
A brief story. In the fall of 1983, I was 26 and a student at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Having completed my master of divinity in the spring, I had begun my Ph.D. work and was scheduled to lead my first seminar in a class on sisdom literature. My assignment was an in-depth book review and response to Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book Why Bad Things Happen to Good People which was a bestseller at that moment.
Also, I was an associate pastor at a church in Lexington where my wife and I would spend our weekends. My seminar was scheduled for Tuesday. The Sunday before, the pastor had decided to leave early to attend the Kentucky Baptist Convention and had asked me to preach the evening service.
Lloyd
Because of my work for my seminar, I chose to preach on Genesis 50 for that Sunday evening — “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, the saving of many lives.” I spent the weekend working on my sermon and outlining my seminar plan with the goal of coming home back to Louisville on Sunday night to write out my plan on how to respond to “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” The irony of that day, Nov. 13, 1983, will never leave me. My 22-year-old senior in college baby sister, Linda, would be killed in an automobile accident that day and I would be told that night upon my return to campus.
In the nearly 42 years since that night, I have often thought of that day when a bad thing happened to a bunch of good people and collided with the phrase “but God meant it for good.”
My takeaways:
1. God was with me. The story of Joseph resonated so deeply with me. In my grief and in the grief that my family shared, the overriding conviction was that even in our pain, much like the pain that Joseph must have felt, the Lord was with us. Years later when I would experience another overwhelming grief, the same was true. On my most darkest days, the Lord was with me.
2. We live in a broken world where things happen like betrayal that leads to being thrown in a pit or falling asleep in the afternoon sun driving on a road that you had driven hundreds of times.
3. Yet, out of all our brokenness, God is still at work because “we know that in all things God is working for good for those who love him and are called for his purpose” (Romans 8:28). In our grief and brokenness God still is working to put our lives together and, like Jacob, though we may walk with a limp, we do walk!
4. The longing for heaven grows sweeter by the day. Once Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, Jacob moved to Egypt and the family was restored until the death of Joseph. My parents are 95 and now not in great health. In their eyes, there is a longing and a hope, to be with those who have gone before them — most all of their friends, their parents, a baby stillborn at birth and their daughter. Heaven will be a homegoing!
Thanks be to God! Thank you for letting me tell my story and the power in the book of Beginnings! B&R