GOOD COMETH FROM EVIL Lent Devotion #41

Genesis 50:15     When Joseph's brethren saw that their father was dead, they said, Perhaps now Joseph will hate us and will pay us back for all the evil we did to him.
REFLECTION: Guilt can remain with a person many years. It did for Joseph's brothers, producing a fear that Joseph would be like them. And like them, he would want to take revenge on the brothers for their selling him into slavery. The brothers felt their only protection from harm from Joseph was Jacob, their father. Now he was dead. The door of vengeance was now open.
 What the brothers did not understand was the character of their brother Joseph. Joseph understood that what they did to him ultimately saved his family. He understood God had a hand in what they did. The brothers were so filled with guilt (plus the guilt that it was their brother that saved them from the famine) that they could not see God's hand in what happened.
So it is with others. Many people who do great things do it out of response to the pain they received. Some respond in socially and emotionally harmful ways. Others see the ultimate good that can arise from their experience. Marilyn Van De Bur (a former Miss America) and Phil Quinn (holder of a Ph. D. degree) created child abuse organizations that helped many other adult survivors of child sexual abuse. Had they themselves not been abused those many years, they would not have been able to do that mission. Was God's hand in their life? Did he cause the abuse for its use? Or did He merely use the circumstances of their abuse for good?
Prayer: God, let us not use the mistreatment we’ve received at the hands of another person to cloud our vision of how we can serve you. Help us see how to use these events for your glory. Amen.    ---written by Carolyn