Have we figured out why God put us on planet earth? All joking aside, that's an important thing to think about.
Our birth date is the day that we join billions of other peeps living on this beautiful creation of almighty God. The day that we figure out "why we were born" is another super important day....
In other words, what is our purpose here?
What was each one of us born to do?
Kinda deep question, huh?
Maybe you've thought about it, and you feel you were born to be a mom or dad (yes, some of the guys look here sometimes!).
Maybe one of us feels she was born to be a Sunday school teacher.
Maybe born to help the homeless.
Maybe born to teach a second language to new citizens.
It's an interesting question, and it boils down to this: what does God want us to do, with these lives that He has blessed us with?
Many people claim Proverbs 3:5-6 as their own..... they promise that if we will trust in the Lord, He will make our way straight, or direct our paths, according to which translation you read:
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)Many of us have personal knowledge of how God can guide us. Many of us have experienced His guiding hand and His working in our lives.... He can put us exactly where we need to be. He can arrange all of the details years in advance! He can open doors that seem shut tightly, and He can move any obstacles in our path.
He can even take our choices and fit them into His plan, so that we end up at the right place, and at the right time. Along the way, He can take our mistakes and the mistakes of others, and bring good out of them -- He can even take tragedy and use it both for our own good, and for His glory, too.
Yes, we serve an awesome God!
That's why this verse is lived out in believers' lives:
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. (Proverbs 16:9)Some people find their "calling" early. Some people find it later in life. It's a fact that often other people can see it before we do. And sometimes, it's our circumstances that reveal it to us.
So, back to our story.....this is the tale of Joseph, son of Jacob, grandson of Isaac, and great-grandson of Abraham, and Genesis introduces him to us like this:
Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line.Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. (Genesis 37:1-2)
OK, so first we see that Joseph is a teenager. Remember back when you were a teenager? Perhaps you worked in a family business, too, as Joseph did. And I bet (like we said before) that if we'd asked Joseph about his own future, he would not have had a clue! He might have said, "Well, I'm going to be a shepherd and keep flocks of animals like my dad, granddad, and great-granddad." After all, staying in the family business is not a bad thing..... he has not yet "discovered" what God's will for his life will be. Or, should we say, God's will has not yet discovered him -- sometimes we don't find God's will; sometimes it finds us!
Yes, God actually does have a blueprint for our lives. He has a plan. A purpose. But I haven't heard yet of any way that we can get a copy of it.....God's will is revealed to us a little bit at a time.
When you were little, did you make a shoebox movie palace? Let me explain.....we used to take a long piece of paper and roll it in from both sides, after we'd decorated with our crayons. It became a scroll, then, and we made slits on both sides of the box to allow the paper to pass through. As we unrolled the scroll from one side, and rolled it up on the other, a little story could be seen:
Well, that is kinda like how God's will is revealed to us.
And that is how it was revealed to Joseph....right now he is Jacob's favorite son. (Don't look now, but that is going to cause some major problems soon.)
He will be betrayed and sold into slavery.
He will end up being purchased by Potiphar and earn his trust, becoming his "right-hand-man."
Then he will be falsely accused by Potiphar's wife, and be thrown in jail.
He'll meet two people in jail who will swear to help him, but won't.
Then he will stand before Pharaoh and interpret Pharaoh's dream.
He'll become Pharaoh's "right-hand-man" then, and be prime minister.
Then his brothers will come to Egypt and not recognize him, but he will give them a home.
What a roller coaster!
I have a feeling there's a lot for us to learn here.....hope you will join me this week.
Absolutely I will be here. I am looking very much forward to this.
ReplyDeleteI have come to think that it is best to just do the next thing that comes along rather than have a game plan from the beginning. Maybe God prefers it that way and maybe he doesn't mind, but it can save us Christians a great deal of disappointment and heartache. Of course it makes life quite interesting!
ReplyDeleteThank you both for your comments....Yes, I believe your approach could be just the ticket! If we over-plan, and then we cling to those plans, it may be difficult for us to flex with what God has in mind for us!
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