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In Genesis chapter 50 we read that when Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, who had sold him into Egypt, he said to them, "You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good....to save many people alive" (v. 20).
When he had gone down to Egypt, Joseph had taken God with him (Genesis 39:2). Some 1700 years later another Joseph went down to Egypt-taking God with him-and God meant it for good.
But for the mothers of all the baby boys who were murdered at Herod's command-"Rachel weeping for her children"-there would have been nothing good about this time. We read that they refused to be comforted (Matthew 2:18). However, I will not be in the least surprised someday to learn that the Lord Jesus, some 30 years later, had a special word of blessing to give them as He ministered in and around Bethlehem.
Oftentimes it is very hard for us to think that God means it for good when disappointments, troubles and tragedies overtake us. We weep for our own children with their problems and in their pain. We are sorely vexed for other loved ones in a multitude of difficulties and sorrows that befall them. And our tears obscure the outstretched hand of the Lord; the heaviness in our hearts deadens us to the feeling of His love surrounding us. We don't know why this is happening to us and to our loved ones; we can't understand how it seems that we love them more than the Lord does for we would not stand by and watch if we had the power to do anything about it, age of no miracles or not.
So easily we forget that it is because of sin that the world is like it is and that, "In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer...." or, "All things work together for good...." We know all this, but sometimes it is very hard to remember because we are unable to distance ourselves from the situation and try to imagine the 'big picture'. We forget that God sees in eternal 'cinemascope', that this life is but a brief and trying apprenticeship, and that our "light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17).
I think when we look back we will be amazed, and not a little ashamed perhaps, at the way we were preoccupied with this life, and all its problems, to the exclusion of the vision of victory that our Lord and Saviour wants us to share now and which will enable us to be more than conquerors through Him that loved us and came to experience for Himself the "feeling of our infirmities".
"Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift"
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