Joyful Ruins

Are you feeling sidelined in life? Because I am.

Sometimes God takes us to surprising places and sometimes they can make us feel put to the side.

I have had a sudden sickness come into my life and not go away. I imagined getting over it quickly, but that is not what is happening. To be honest with you, it feels like I have been taken out of the game. It feels like Satan has won because I am weak, tired, doubtful, and no longer serving in the way I used to.

Well, all I can say is that we are in good company.

We are not being sidelined and Satan has not won.

Joseph was given a vision of his life, a pretty great one, where others would bow to him. He was young, favored, and probably did not have a care in the world.

Then, bam! His life trajectory completely changed. Yours might have too. Maybe it’s cancer that has hit you or divorce, the loss of a loved one, crippling emotional pain. For Joseph, he was betrayed by his brothers, given over to slave traders and that wasn’t the end of the roller coaster. He was favored again, then imprisoned. A door opened again for him to be freed and he was forgotten. I don’t think Joseph was perfect in his journey. I’d imagine he felt “taken out of the game” at times. He was meant to be having others bow to him and instead he was hidden away in a prison for years.

Maybe you were meant to be healthy and now you are hiding in chronic illness. Maybe your marriage was meant to end in happily ever after and now you are facing divorce. It’s hard not to and normal to ask God, “What the heck?” Job asked in his suffering, “Why?” It’s not recorded, but I am sure Joseph wrestled with the same things you are.

But, Joseph declared, “you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done.”

I know that might fall flat for you right now. For me, I want to believe it but I lack the strength to.

Don’t worry. Joseph did not come to such faith over night or by himself.

Yet, what I want to proclaim today is that you and I are not sidelined. God’s plan for you, whatever it may be, is still happening. The enemy may attack and he may believe he’s removed you from the fight, but we know better. God uses what the enemy intends for harm, to accomplish good, not just for others, but for you.

Joseph was not only freed from prison, promoted big time, given a family, but he was reunited with his brothers with forgiveness in his heart (no doubt something God helped him come to in that prison cell). AND then he was chosen to rescue an entire nation.

So, no, you are not sidelined. God’s got something ahead you can’t see. Hang in there.