Gen 41-42 God can and will use many things to bring about His plan, even a famine. Yet, in all that, we see God’s grace behind the scenes. Even today, we see the effect of sin in the lives of many, yet God’s grace and His forgiveness are revealed as His Word is presented so that they may repent and be restored.
In Joseph’s story, we can see the truth that God causes all things to happen to prove that He plans not to harm us but to give us a future filled with hope. [Jer 29:11] Imagine the brothers who stand before him, not knowing it was their long-lost brother. When questioned, they say, “we are honest men.” Ummm nope! 🙁 They are not, but God will use these circumstances to change them to be the men who will fulfill the promise of God to Abraham. “The families of the earth will receive a blessing through you.” [Gen 12:3]
When you look back over your life, can you see the hand of God testing and proving you? Can you give Him the glory that He chose you in eternity past and predestined you according to His good pleasure? [Eph 1:4]
Family reunions are both a blessing but sometimes an embarrassment such as when “Uncle Judah” shows up. Memories flash through our minds of his two wives and his unrighteous sons. We feign welcome but our minds reel at his latest episode of impregnating his daughter in law unsuspectingly. And here he is in the line of Christ along with that daughter in law Tamar. How did he get here? The sovereign hand of God shows us that He will make us part of His family when we seek His face and His forgiveness. He used people who were righteous such as Abraham but also those rascals such as Judah. And how did that happen? “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”[ 1Co 6:11]