It May Take Time

Usually my devotionals push us toward the Saturday Night Sermon, but I thought today I would take a small diversion from that practice. I have been working a lot with Forgiveness. Each Wednesday Night I have been gathering with a great group of people and we have been wrestling with what forgiveness means in our daily lives. It is a question that isn't far from many of our hearts.

Today as I was reading through some scriptures, I encountered again the story of Joseph. Here is a guy that really got the raw end of the deal. He was betrayed by his brothers, cast into a well and alienated from relationships, taken into exile from his family and friends, framed by a "desperate housewife", and tossed into a bondage of someone else's doing. It wasn't his fault! If there was anyone that had the right to bitterness, it was Joseph.

I have no doubt that throughout those years many moments of anger, bitterness, hopelessness, anxiety, and even rage invaded his heart and mind. With every wasted day in exile, he grieved lost relationships and a place at his family's table. With every day he was in bondage he would have been reminded of the wicked actions of his brothers that put him in this predicament in the first place.

Unfortunately, one of the side effects of being wounded is what I call "Closed book syndrome." If our lives are stories--much of which are yet to be written, the sin of others on our lives has a way of slamming shut the book. We then live completely determined by what happened to us. We can't see any hope of this story turning out in a good way. We are imprisoned by the past events, pain, and betrayal of others.

What we forget is that God is not done in our stories. God is the eternal author that is ever-present, even in our exile and bondage. I am deeply challenged by the story of Joseph. Late in the story, Joseph encounters his brothers. After imprisonment, Joseph had come to a place of favor (even in exile) and then his brothers come seeking his favor. Remember, if there was anyone that had a right to bitterness and unforgiveness, it was Joseph. He could have said to his brothers, "Let me treat you like you have treated me."

But...Joseph had experienced a God that wasn't done writing his story. In fact, Joseph had so allowed God to continue writing his story, he was able to find the redemptive providence of God even in exile and bondage. Listen to what Joseph says to his brothers, 19 But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children." And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.

Now, remember this statement took time. There were moments when he would have wanted them dead. But there is an openness to Joseph. There was an openness to experience the ongoing providence of God in the midst of broken moments of life. There was the openness of the story...one that reminds that no moment is so completely determinative and enveloping that it cuts off any hope of a future.

I wonder what forgiveness might look like in our lives if we took the time to wait upon God to continue to write a redemptive and hopeful future out of the exilic and bound up moments of our past.