God Has a Plan

We are learning how to deal with the bends in the road. Bends in the road change your direction.

This year over 40,000 Americans will have an unexpected change in the road.

Forty thousand Americans are injured by toilets each year.

UNEXPECTED Bends in the road come to us ALL.

The question is not if, but when. Sometimes those bends in the road and life crushing.

Last week we discovered what to do when your life comes crashing down.

Remember Jesus always loves you.

Remember we don’t always understand everything.

Remember Jesus is always the answer.

Today we continue our study by asking the question, What do we ask when God is Silent.

Genesis 37:5–10 NASB95

Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, “Please listen to this dream which I have had; for behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and lo, my sheaf rose up and also stood erect; and behold, your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.” Then his brothers said to him, “Are you actually going to reign over us? Or are you really going to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Now he had still another dream, and related it to his brothers, and said, “Lo, I have had still another dream; and behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” He related it to his father and to his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have had? Shall I and your mother and your brothers actually come to bow ourselves down before you to the ground?”

What is God Up To?

Genesis 37:5 NASB95

Then Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.

What in the world is God up to when we are hurting and need to hear from Him so desperately? Second, what are we to do in the meantime?

The answers to these questions are indispensable if we are to deal successfully with the bends in the road. As long as we are in a fog about God’s whereabouts and His response to our situation, there will always be room for doubt. But reassurance of His involvement alone is not enough. We need direction as well.The purpose of this message is to answer these two questions. By doing so, I pray that God will erase from your heart forever the awful fear that perhaps He is not interested in your hurt, that He has more important things with which to concern Himself.To answer these questions, we are going to take a look at the life of Joseph. Let me remind you again not to allow your mind to race to the end of these narratives. If you do, you will miss what God is trying to say. When the Bible presents a particular character’s life, the author focuses on those events that are relevant to the theme he is following. This gives the impression oftentimes that the lives of these characters were filled with one supernatural event after another. But that is not the case at all. There were weeks, months, and even years in which nothing special seemed to happen. As we study this Old Testament story, put yourself in the place of the character. Like us, Joseph was forced to deal with the silence of God in the midst of grave adversity.

Where is God in this?

Genesis 37:23–24 NASB95

So it came about, when Joseph reached his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the varicolored tunic that was on him; and they took him and threw him into the pit. Now the pit was empty, without any water in it.

Joseph’s troubles started as a teenager. At seventeen he was his father’s favorite, and that did not go over well with his ten older brothers. They were jealous, and their jealousy turned to hatred (see Gen. 37:4). If that was not enough, Joseph had a series of dreams implying that one day his entire family would bow down and worship him. Being young, and perhaps careless, Joseph described these dreams to his father and brothers. The text seems to indicate that his sharing of dreams pushed his brothers over the edge.Sometime after that, Joseph was sent to Shechem by his father to check on his brothers and the flocks they were tending. Joseph was informed by a stranger that his brothers had moved on to Dothan. Determined to accomplish his mission, he set out to find his brothers in Dothan—about twenty–five miles away. When his brothers saw him coming, they plotted to put him to death. When he arrived, they stripped him and threw him into a pit. Then they sat down to eat dinner.At this point in the narrative we might expect some divine intervention. If not deliverance, surely some indication that everything was going to work out fine. But nothing happened. God was silent. Joseph sat alone in the bottom of a pit with no guarantee that he would live through the night. No doubt he rehearsed in his mind the events leading up to his imprisonment: his obedience to his father; his willingness to go the extra mile; and now this. It did not make any sense; it was not his fault that his father loved him more than the others. It was not fair. And still, God was seemingly nowhere to be found.Egypt Bound

When is God going to act?

Genesis 41:38–40 NASB95

Then Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can we find a man like this, in whom is a divine spirit?” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has informed you of all this, there is no one so discerning and wise as you are. “You shall be over my house, and according to your command all my people shall do homage; only in the throne I will be greater than you.”

I hope that by now you are beginning to relate to Joseph. I sure can.

There is nothing more bewildering than doing what is right and then watching things fall apart.

Or what about adversity that comes as a result of things over which you have no control? Every time I deal with an individual suffering from something that happened during childhood, I think, Lord, it was not this person’s decision to be born into that home. Why should this person have to suffer? When I stand at the bedside of persons suffering from cancer or some other disease, I find myself asking the same question.You did not pick your parents; yet you may be dealing with things that stem from their problems. You may have lost a job over something that was not your fault at all. But you are the one who is suffering. Maybe you are one of those women who did your best to respond properly to a husband who was impossible to live with, and now he has abandoned you and your children. Situations such as these make for difficult questions. They seem to justify in our minds the line of thinking that goes like this: If there was a God in heaven, He would not sit idly by while I suffer. Many people have had irreparable damage done to their faith as a result of adversity. That is why this story is such an important one.One Step Up, Two Steps BackThere is no way of knowing exactly how long Joseph was in prison. We know he was there for more than two years (see Gen. 41:1). It could have been as many as eight or nine. Imagine spending the next few years of your life in a foreign prison. Not awaiting a trial of any kind. Joseph was a slave. He had no rights or avenue of appeal. There was no one to plead his case to Pharaoh. No family to pay a visit. He was sent to prison to rot. And for what reason? Faithfulness to a God who certainly did not seem to be showing much faithfulness in return. Joseph had been outspoken about his faith (see Gen. 39:9). He was doing his best to remain loyal. But he received no blessing in return. Things only got worse. And God was agonizing silent.

Resources:

How to Handle Adversity, Charles Stanley

When Your World Falls Apart, Dr. David Jeremiah