The following was excerpted from a recent Our Daily Bread Ministries devotional.©
If we’re honest, we would probably admit we’ve had moments when we’ve thought the promises in the Bible were written for someone else. It can be tough to lean back into God’s arms in total trust when we’ve just been handed a cancer diagnosis. In moments of pain and suffering, we live in the tension of who we believe God to be and who He appears to be if we use circumstances to define Him. We can learn much from Joseph in the Old Testament. He believed God was good and loving yet circumstances seemed to indicate the opposite. He was jailed innocently, often betrayed, thrown into a pit by his brothers to die and sold into slavery. One after another, the good things of Joseph’s life were stripped away; his freedom, reputation, and his family. He lived for years with no visible evidence that God was working “all things for his good.” Yet Joseph held firmly to faith in a loving God. Why? Joseph’s faith was rooted in his commitment to truth, not in what he could see. He believed in a trustworthy God whose faithfulness was greater than his circumstances suggested. He believed God sovereignly intervened in the course of human history; therefore, he trusted Him. Joseph, like us, lived much of his life in the tension of experiences that didn’t seem to match up with God’s promises. Yet he clung unswervingly to his faith. Trials are a certainty in life, but they don’t have the power to control us when our faith rests in the character of a trustworthy God who promises that through His Son, Jesus Christ, we will triumph in all things.
© Excerpted and adapted from “It is Well With My Soul” by Shelly Beach, 2012 Discovery House Publishers.