Brown's Daily Word 1-13-10

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the way He brings triumph out of tragedy. He transforms the tears of grief in to the tears of joy. We read in Psalm 30, "Weeping may endure for the night but Joy comes in the morning." The story of Joseph in the Old Testament is the story of tragedy and triumph. When I read that story I am reminded of Jacob and how his sons had brought Joseph's coat to him, dipped in blood, and asked him whose coat it was. Jacob looked at the coat and when he saw the blood his mind went crazy and his imagination went off the scale. Genesis 37:33, "And he knew it, and said, 'It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.'" For nearly 15 years Jacob played the scene of Joseph’s horrible death in his imagination. But the truth is that Jacob was wrong; Joseph was not dead, but very much alive. Jacob looked at the evidence in front of him and, based on the evidence, he wrote the rest of the story.
We can't judge a book by one chapter. You can't look at one chapter of one life and write the whole story.
In Acts 3:2-6 it is written that there was a lame man, a beggar who had never walked and who was a burden on society. That information is contained in verses 2-6. But in vs 8 He is walking and leaping and praising God. Then, in Vs 9-10, all the people saw him walking and praising God. "And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him."
Jacob looked at the evidence and wrote Joseph off, but while Jacob was grieving over Joseph’s death, Joseph was ruling over Egypt. Jacob, looking at the evidence in front of him which was screaming disaster, death, and hopelessness, assumed the obvious. Yet, the evidence was misleading, Yes it was Joseph's coat, covered in blood, but it was not rent by a wild beast and it was not Joseph's blood.
The enemy wants to provide us with just enough evidence that we will believe what we see in the world more than what we see in the Heart of God through His Word. Joseph was not dead, but out of sight as the Lord God Omnipotent was at work, out of Jacob's sight. He was at work in the life of Joseph, performing His wonders and power. The Lord was restoring the years the locusts had eaten. He is at work even now in destroying the powers of the enemy who comes to steal and destroy.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." 1 Corinthians 2:9
In Christ,
Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkO-D0fatRQ