Choose to Find the Grace

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:20 NIV)

My favorite story of forgiveness in the Old Testament is the story of Joseph forgiving his brothers for selling him into slavery.  Maybe it's my favorite because I come from a large family and my siblings and I did our share of selling one another out for our own selfish reasons.  But the story of Joseph and his brothers is a good one no matter what kind of family you come from.  And I think the best line in the story is, "What you intended for evil, God intended for good."

God is always using evil committed by his children for good.  Look at the cross... an instrument of evil used by God to give the most incredible gift ever.  And he still does it in our lives today.  Every single time, if we only allow ourselves to see it.  We can miss it.  Joseph could have missed it.  He could have used his God-given good fortune to take revenge on his brothers.  He could have had them killed.  But Joseph chose to find the grace.

That's the thing.  We have to choose it in order to receive it.  No matter what evil is going on in our lives right now... disease, divorce, unemployment, or any other of the myriad possibilities, we need only to look for the grace.  It doesn't mean that the evil won't affect us or hurt us.  Joseph was hurt, no question about it.  But the grace raises us above the hurt.  And it is that grace that gives us the ability to forgive.  And then that ability to forgive turns around and pours out even more grace on us!

Why, why, why do we so often choose to remain mired in the evil rather than choose the grace?  Look at the evil that is holding you down in your life today.  Choose to find grace... and you will.

Father,
I choose grace today.  Amen.