Fireside Chat Ministries

By: Mandie Nelson

8/12/23

Do you have a life verse? I thought it was so strange, the first time someone asked me what my “life verse” was. She asked it about as casually as she would ask my preference for soda or my favorite color. 

Life verse? Did I miss that day in school?

“You know, what Bible verse has been the defining Scripture of your life?” she wanted to know. Ohhh…that! That was easy.

Genesis 50:20 immediately came to mind (although, admittedly, I had to look up chapter and verse numbers…that’s okay, too). “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is to this day, to save many people alive.”

I love this Scripture, for so many reasons. In this last chapter of Genesis – the story of Joseph – there was famine in the land. Young Joseph had been through SO much trial and so many heartaches and such physical and mental pain. His own family had betrayed him. Beaten him and left him for dead. He had been sold as a slave. Imprisoned. Falsely accused. Completely forsaken by the ones who were supposed to have loved and cared for him.

But here’s where the story gets really good.

Just when we thought it was over…God saw Joseph. The truth is, He’d had a plan for Joseph all along. And if He’d allowed Joseph to take any other path, Joseph wouldn’t have been promoted to second-in-command of all of Egypt when the famine came and decimated the land. That means that Joseph’s story wouldn’t have ended the way it did. But here he was, in charge of the food supply, and the very person who would determine the destiny of his brothers. 

So when Joseph’s family came to the palace looking for food….who did they find? The same person they had abused and left for dead all those decades ago. Joseph, long forgotten by his family and friends. Declared missing and given up on. The search for his body had been called off a long time ago.

Yet here he was. Would he spare the lives of those who had brutally assaulted him and left him in the pit to die?

I like to think I would’ve had the same grace and strength that Joseph had in that moment, but I can’t really be sure. God gave him the strength to look his accusers right in the face, and offer grace:

“But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is to this day, to save many people alive.”

Wowwww. There it is. 

Joseph knew it all along. His life had a purpose. There was a reason for all the painful situations he’d lived through. He’d been to the lowest of the low places on earth…beaten and left for dead. Lied about. Stolen from. Sold as a slave. Yet, he offered grace, because he knew that God would turn his story into something good, if only he would let Him. And that’s exactly what he chose to do. He offered food and grace and forgiveness where he had been treated with bitterness and lies and hate. 

What a beautiful picture of God’s grace.

Is life always beautiful? Certainly not. You don’t have to look far to find war, strife, lies, famine, disease, and death. But you do have to have spiritual eyes to see past all of that to the other side, where grace is. To give mercy to your accusers. To offer forgiveness to your past abusers. To let God get the final say, no matter how dark or difficult it gets.

No matter what. But God. Maybe He’s reserved you for such a time as this, so that when you tell your story, like I’m telling mine, that He will get the glory. 

There is no other force in all the universe that can turn your mess into a message. Your ashes into beauty. And your pain into His glory.

But God.

Love,

Mandie