My driver’s license requires that I have “corrective” lenses to operate my vehicle on the road. Corrected, my vision is 20-20.
I have needed corrective lens since I started high school. I am glad now that I can see things more clearly.
It would be good if our spiritual vision could be improved by an annual visit to an optometrist or ophthalmologist and receive corrective lenses to better see how God is working in our lives in both good times and bad.
KirklandThe life of Joseph is a good example of seeing things clearly from a spiritual standpoint and can instruct and inspire you and me. The drama of this young Hebrew, one of patriarch Jacob’s 12 sons, unfolds in Genesis 37-50. It is the moving account of this young man’s wounding by his own brothers who were jealous of his favored status with their father, and his eventual healing at the hands of the God he worshipped and obeyed.
Sold into slavery and hauled off to Egypt, assigned the work of a servant in the household of an Egyptian official, accused of rape by that official’s wife, sent to prison where he languished for too long, Joseph rose to prominence and found redemption after he had predicted years of feast and famine in Egypt, allowing his captors to prepare for the hard times. Egypt then became a refuge for his own family as the predicted famine spread to the land of Canaan, which was promised to Abraham by God.
Through it all, Joseph obeyed God and continued to worship him. He was able in the worst and best of times to discern the actions of God as they affected him, his family and the Hebrews. Working in the life of Joseph, God preserved a remnant of his people of choice and kept the promise made long ago that the descendants of Abraham would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.
Four hundred years after their enslavement in Egypt, the Hebrew people made their Exodus under the guidance of God and the leadership of Moses. As instructed generations earlier, the children of Israel carried the embalmed body of Joseph with them on their journey to the land of promise.
The big picture of how God made good on his promise to create and preserve a people who would be uniquely his own should not diminish the importance of the more immediate and close-up picture. It shows the working of God in the lives of Joseph and his brothers.
It would not have surprised you and me if Joseph had borne scars never to be removed by the evil actions of his brothers against him. And we might not have found fault with Joseph if he had taken revenge against his siblings. After all, people have been known to hold grudges for a long time, waiting for the right moment to strike a blow for justice.
But Joseph is not the primary character in his own story; God is. The Lord enabled Joseph to see divine purpose in the events of his life. He refused to view himself as a victim of a foul deed done by his family. No, he said, it was the providence of God – his wise and benevolent supervision of his creation – that helped Joseph put things in perspective.
Joseph found meaning in the scar-producing wounds that he never forgot, but refused to allow that memory to dictate his actions. In an emotional meeting with his brothers when they came hunting for food in Egypt, Joseph wept over their reunion and assured his fearful family that he intended no revenge.
“Don’t be worried or angry with yourselves for selling me here,” Joseph told them, “because God sent me ahead of you to preserve life. God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance.”
Later, after Jacob had died, the brothers again were afraid for their lives now that the protective hand of their father was no longer there. What would Joseph do now, they wondered. Joseph quieted their anxious spirits with the oft-quoted verse, Genesis 50:20. He said to them, “You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result – the survival of many people.”
Joseph looked at life with “50:20 vision.” Joseph knew – as should we – that God did not create the evil, the hateful act that carried Joseph into undeserved slavery. But God made something lastingly good of it for the benefit of Joseph and Israel. Centuries later, the apostle Paul – who knew something of suffering – was able to see in his own life how God worked, and wrote in his Roman letter, “Moreover we know that to those who love God, who are called according to his plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good.”
The Scriptures do not insist that we call evil good. The Bible does teach us that God has the power – and uses it – to take what is evil, what is bad, and transform it into divine good. That enables you and me to experience life in all its fullness as promised by Jesus.
I am thankful that with corrective lenses I’m seeing just fine, thank you. More important, though, for you and for me, is that we view our unfolding lives with 50:20 vision, just as Joseph did.