One of my favorite seminary professors used to say that this was one of the most important verses in Genesis.  That’s saying a lot, considering Genesis contains creation and covenants all over the place.

So what makes these verses such a big deal?  Especially since it’s not one we read/hear regularly like Moses, or Abraham, or Creation?

These two verses tell us something HUGE about God:
Even when God seems hard to find, God is working.

Let me say that again:

Even when God seems hard to find, God is working.

No matter what the scenario, God is working in it.

BUT -and this is an important distinction:
God isn’t making the bad things happen, but God is working in them.

Notice how Joseph doesn’t say that God made this stuff happen, he said his brothers intended something bad, and it was the actions of Godin the midst of the bad stuff that made good happen.

Does that mean Joseph being left behind and sold into slavery magically became good?
No.

Not even close. Being sold by your jealous brothers is a difficult thing to make good.

Does that mean Joseph was ok with all that had happened to him?
Nope.

He forgave them, yes, but that doesn’t make it ok.

But did God work within the bad?
Yes.

So much yes.

I know that trust is sometimes hard.
I imagine while Joseph was sitting at the bottom of an old well, or in jail in Egypt, trust was hard to come by. It was in those times, when Joseph felt like God had forgotten about him, where God was working.

So don’t doubt.

If there is bad happening in your life right now, trust that God is in it.
Even when it’s hard to see God in it, trust that God is there.
Deep within it, working to make good things happen.
Trust that even when it’s hard to see God – God is there.

God is there.
God. Is. There.

AMEN.