Lessons from Joseph...

This coming week we are looking at the story of Joseph...I love the story of Joseph. When I think that my life is just a little harder than it needs to be, he is one of the characters that can sometimes pop into my mind.

God showed him favor...in his gifts and talents, in so many things, but it is a story that is filled with such heartache and dysfunction. Bad things happening to a good person...

I will be wondering with my kids this week about why God lets some things be so hard for us...why God just doesn't wave a magic wand and poof...everything is in its place and we are able without any friction, or resistance, to do all that He had made us to do...One of the questions that I'm going to be asking our kids this Sunday is "What would our lives be like if everything just worked out real easy-like?" A life where everything just happened without any hardship, loss, disappointment...

Could you imagine what it would have been like to have the family that Joseph had...Those bullies for brothers, and a father out of touch with the hurts and insecurities of his sons...At least one of them kept the others from actually killing him...God's spirit at work. God took an evil act, a selfish trail of events and worked for years to save thousands of people from famine, even the brothers who, in selfish betrayal, tipped that first domino in the story of Joseph.

Joseph, despite the parade of manipulative and deceitful characters, kept his eye on God...continued to believe in the gifts and talents God had given him to use, continued to believe that it wasn't his doing, but God's hand at work in him.

What if there had been no family betrayal? No violence...no deception...no slavery...no manipulation...no revenge...no failure...no famine...no forgiveness...no reconciliation...no opportunity for God to show Himself...no Story.

The things that happen to us in this life are the tools God uses to shape us, make us...the good, the bad and the ugly...all ways that God forms us into the people he knows and continues to creates us to be...

Keep trusting that God is at work, moving and shifting situations, events and people around us. The losses, disappointments, failures, mistakes, enemies, former friends, and estranged family, are things that God is at work in, being God in...restoring and creating something new in. Share these stories, your Joseph Stories, with your kids...let them hear that sometimes bad things come into our lives, but that God is always at work in huge, quiet, wonderful ways...sometimes most especially the hard-not-easy times of our lives.

In His loving Kindness,
Dana

Prayer for your kids journey today...

MERCY
Oh Father, grant that
my children would be
full of mercy and
compassion as you are
Lord.
James 5:11

Adapted from an article written by Bob Hostetler

Prayer for your kids journey today...

INTEGRITY
Lord, may integrity and
uprightness protect my
children because their
hope is in you.
Psalm 25:21

Adapted from an article written by Bob Hostetler

Prayer for you kids journey today...

SALVATION
Lord, I pray that my
children would obtain
the salvation that is in
Christ Jesus, with
eternal glory.
2 Timothy 2:10

Adapted from an article written by Bob Hostetler