Paused for a Purpose: Relying on God’s Character and Accepting God’s Wisdom When He Puts Your Dreams on Hold
Do you find it hard to trust God's timing? Especially when God's timing for your life unfolds into a difficult journey with an uncertain ending. The old Ziggy cartoon has a telling graphic where he stands holding a lemon and asks, "They say if life hands you a lemon, make some lemonade. But how much lemonade can you make with just one lemon?" Ziggy finds a comical way to express a darker reality we all must wrestle with - what happens when God's "plan" puts a seemingly permanent hold on what we had hoped for our lives? What happens when we see no redeemable future? Is there always a light at the end of the tunnel? The old saying, "There is always a silver lining," is both shallow and false and cannot anchor our souls in our darkest seasons. Only our trust in God's plan for our life can do that. Proverbs 16:3 encourages us to "commit to the LORD, whatever we do, and He will establish our plans." The proverb, just like the Joseph narrative, invites us to trust God but in the opposite way that we usually want to do it. Trust God first before you can see or understand His plans. Once you have surrendered to Him, then His plans will unfold. But how do we trust God like that?
The story of Joseph offers us some guidance here. In Genesis 40, Joseph once again has a small glimmer of hope only to have it taken away (v. 23), and he is forgotten by those who should not have forgotten him. And just like that, his life is put on hold again. Joseph’s long road of suffering continues, but so does God’s care and protection of Joseph. Joseph's life now invites us to consider two paradoxical realities - our life will contain both God's love and guidance and much pain. We generally hold these two as incompatible. But as we grow in our trust of God's character and wisdom, we discover that they are not. They are paradoxical but not incompatible. And because of this paradox, the secret to trusting God’s plan for our life is not found in understanding it, or even in seeing it at all, rather it is found in relying on His character and accepting His wisdom.
Joseph’s long road of suffering continues, but so does God’s care and protection of Joseph. Joseph's life now invites us to consider two paradoxical realities - our life will contain both God's love and guidance and much pain.
Truly understanding God's character is the first step. The book of Isaiah is composed during a dark season for God's people. They lived in constant rebellion against Him. They have caused much pain and affliction through the dispairing choices that they have made. And yet, in the midst of all of this, God tells them, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the one she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."
And this is the secret to trusting God's plan through every season of our life: we must rely on His character and accept His wisdom.
When my children were young, my wife would be unable to sleep when they were crying, even if she knew they were being cared for by me. Science has shown us that the bond of love in a mother for her newborn is one of the strongest bonds there is. When I was confused about why my wife would wake up even though she knew it was my turn to feed that shift, she would tell me, "You don't understand! I can't sleep when they are crying. It is physically impossible for me to." When God's people are at their lowest, He describes His character as a mother caring for her newborn infant. He cannot ignore them! He says He has engraved them on the palms of His hands. We probably use our hands more than any body part throughout the day. We use our hands for virtually everything we do. Everything God does, He does with an awareness of His children engraved into his hands.
When God chooses to reveal who He is to Moses after giving him the Ten Commandments in Exodus 34, he says He is a God of "khesed." It is a Hebrew word that means unending loyal love and compassion that flows from the deep care of His children. God's character is "khesed," like a mother who relentlessly cares for her child. God's character is such that He can never abandon you. It would go against who He is. If we are to trust God before we see or understand His plan for our lives, we must let this truth transform us. We cannot accept God’s wisdom for our life's plan until we have trusted His character.
God's character is "khesed," like a mother who relentlessly cares for her child. God's character is such that He can never abandon you. It would go against who He is.
The second step in trusting God's purposes for us, especially when He puts the deeper longings of our hearts on hold, is accepting His wisdom. We must surrender to the truth that "His thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are His ways higher than our way and His thoughts higher than our thoughts," as He declares in Isaiah 55:8-9.
We cannot accept God’s wisdom for our life's plan until we have trusted His character.
The social sciences tell us our relationship to the world is incredibly complex. In their book Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, social scientists James H. Fowler, PhD, and Nicholas A. Christakis, PhD, MD, propose that we are influenced by the people three times removed from us to a significant degree. According to their research, your friends' friends' friends impact you and even influence what you believe, your health, and whether or not you vote. Everything that happens to you impacts people you will never know. Likewise, events that happen to people we've never met inevitably influence us. We don't exist in a vacuum. Your life is never just your life. It influences others in ways you'll never even know. The characters in the story of Joseph will learn this, but much later.
Only a God of infinite wisdom, who can see the world as we never will, can work "all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes" (Rom 8:28). My son is eleven months old. He puts everything in his mouth, which means he (and we!) is (are!) constantly sick. He often gets frustrated when we won't let him eat a half-eaten pretzel on the floor at the mall. But what he sees as a snack, I see as weeks of sickness, sleepless nights, fevers, doctor visits, co-pays, waiting in line at the pharmacy, and sick days from school and work. There is a whole world out there that he has no concept of - germs, microbes, and bacteria. He doesn't understand that if he gets sick, he'll transfer it to his sister, and then eventually, we, his parents, will get sick. He cannot see the world as I can or how all these things work together to impact our family life. He only knows one thing concerning all of this. He likes pretzels.
Likewise, we must accept God's wisdom can see more than we can. And we can only surrender to this if we have taken the first step, trusting His character. Until we know that God's character is "khesed," we will never want to accept His wisdom. Paul says that understanding God's redemptive purpose for his life is like looking in a dirty mirror. He can only see parts, but he still trusts God. He gives us the secret to how he does this in 1 Corinthians 13:12. Paul doesn't need to see all of God's plan now because he knows that God already fully knows him. Just like a mother knows her infant, Paul trusts that this God of "khesed" fully knows him. He doesn't need to "fully know" God’s plan to trust God because he is already "fully known" by God!
Likewise, we must accept God's wisdom can see more than we can. And we can only surrender to this if we have taken the first step, trusting His character. Until we know that God's character is "khesed," we will never want to accept His wisdom.
As a new church planter, I often looked for "signs of God's love" for me. When things went poorly, I took it as a sign of a lack of care from God. When things went well, I saw it as a sign of blessings. And what an emotionally tumultuous time that was for me! Only when the truth that God protects and cares for us and we will suffer will our trust in God no longer be so easily influenced by our circumstances. Only when you rely on His faithful character and accept His infinite wisdom will you be able to maintain your sense of self during the "paused" moments. His character and his wisdom provide for you a hope that no darkness can overcome, no matter how long the road ahead may seem.
___________________________________
Genesis 40
Some time later, the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt offended their master, the king of Egypt. 2 Pharaoh was angry with his two officials, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, 3 and put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, in the same prison where Joseph was confined. 4 The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he attended them.
After they had been in custody for some time, 5 each of the two men—the cupbearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were being held in prison—had a dream the same night, and each dream had a meaning of its own.
6 When Joseph came to them the next morning, he saw that they were dejected. 7 So he asked Pharaoh’s officials who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why do you look so sad today?”
8 “We both had dreams,” they answered, “but there is no one to interpret them.”
Then Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams.”
9 So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, 10 and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. 11 Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in his hand.”
12 “This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days. 13 Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. 14 But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. 15 I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.”
16 When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread.[a] 17 In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”
18 “This is what it means,” Joseph said. “The three baskets are three days. 19 Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and impale your body on a pole. And the birds will eat away your flesh.”
20 Now the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: 21 He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand— 22 but he impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.
23 The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.