“Jacob exclaimed, ‘You are robbing me of my children! Joseph is gone! Simeon is gone! And now you want to take Benjamin, too. Everything is going against me!’”
Genesis 42:36 (NLT)
I don’t know what a day will hold, and neither do you. We can receive news that makes us dance with joy, or we can get a gut punch that takes our breath away. All of this would be terribly frightening were it not for the fact that we are in His grip…and God is love.
Jacob received news from his sons that the lord of Egypt treated them roughly. Little did anyone know that this lord was actually Joseph. He had accused them of being spies and kept Simeon hostage until they brought back Benjamin. When Jacob heard this, he exclaimed that all things were against him. But the truth was that God was working out a plan in Jacob’s life that was better than he could have imagined.
A Jewish university professor once told me, “If you want to make God laugh, then tell Him your plans.” We make goals and strategize how we can achieve them. There is nothing wrong with this. If we aim for nothing, then we will likely hit it. We will wander through life aimlessly and come to the end of our days saying, “What did I do with my life?” But even the best laid plans are subject to unforeseen circumstances, setbacks, and opposition. And the truth is that we don’t know what God is doing. In the case of Jacob, he thought everything was against him, but in reality God was arranging circumstances that would bless him beyond his greatest hope.
Do you feel like all things are against you? Relax your grip on trying to control everything. Fall back onto the loving arms of God. He will never let you fall. And He really will work everything out for your good and His glory.
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