Pain Part 2

Well here is like a recap of the sermon I talked about in the last post. Most of the time we ask God to helps us when really we mean, “God fix this all magically please” but in my life, I have found God does not work with me like that. Most of us also do this with our pain. Whether it be emotional or physical, we want God to just fix it but God doesn’t wave his hand and do it because the bible tells us that,

1.God is in your Pain.

This is found in Genesis 39:20-23. This is the story about Joseph, not Mary’s Joseph, but Joseph and the dream coat or coat of many colors.  You see before this Joseph was the favorite child. So much so that his 11 brothers threw him down a well and told their dad that he died. Joesph was then found by Egyptains, sold in slavery, promoted to head slave, tempted by the slave owners wife which he resisted so she tricked him and got him thrown in jail for trying to “take advantage” of her and now at this point, Joseph is in jail. The scripture reads,

“While Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.”
-Genesis 39:20-23

See, God was with Joesph in his time of pain because he with him always. So no matter what type of pain,

God is in your pain. Joseph then is so blessed by God that he is promoted to head jail person and because of this the leader of Egypt come to him because he has heard that Joseph can interrupt dreams. Well he ask Joseph to do so for him and Joseph tells him he cannot but the Lord can through him (I really like this because you can imagine his smirk when he said it). He then interrupts his dream and tells the leader that there would be 7 years of like everything growing and many blessing followed by seven years of famine.

Well being a smart leader he put Joseph in charge of preparing for this and Joseph did an awesome job. After the first 7 years was over, Joseph was handing out the rations and he recognized some people and realizes they are his brothers. He then asks them to go to his chambers and then he precedes to tell them that they are his brothers. Then,

“His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. We are your slaves, they said. But Joseph said to them, Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. “
- Genesis 50:18-20

See God used his pain which is point 2.

2. God has a plan for your Pain.

Joseph was a man in a lot of pain. If we put our self in his position, we would see that Joseph a man with a lot of scars on the inside but God used his pain for good. That pain wasn’t just to save some lives, but it saved many life. Like many as in a whole nation because if it wasn’t for his past he wouldn’t of been about to help with the feminine.

This is a story I can relate to because when I was younger, I had pain and lots of it. So much so I attempted suicide 2 times. Well at the time I was like why God why? Then I found out why on our senior mission trip. On this trip, I was asked to share my testimony along with one other kid to about 200 kids and at the end of it, many many many kids came to know Christ and well since then I have shared and more have come to know God. But God used my pain so that he could save someones soul. (Looking back, I would do it all over again if just one soul was saved)

So what I to share with you is that no matter the pain, God is with you and no matter the pain, God will use it for his good. I want to challenge you that what ever your going through now, turn to God and let him use this pain. It might be hard a first and it probably will never be easy but one day, hopefully, God will use you to further his kingdom.

-Lane