Max Lucado - God Will Use This for Good: Surviving the Mess of Life

God Will Use
This for Good

2013 Max Lucado

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version. 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Other Scripture references are from the following sources: The Message (MSG) by Eugene H. Peterson. 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved. New American Standard Bible (NASB). The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV (NIV). 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

ISBN: 978-0-8499-2240-4

978-0-8499-4754-4 (shrink wrapped)

978-0-8499-2239-8 (with self-shipper)

Printed in the United States of America

13 14 15 16 17 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Dear Jesus,

Its a good thing you were born at night. This world sure seems dark. I have a good eye for silver linings. But they seem dimmer lately.

The whole world seems on edge. Trigger-happy. Ticked off. We hear threats of chemical weapons and nuclear bombs. Are we one button-push away from annihilation?

Your world seems a bit darker these days. But you were born in the dark, right? You came at night. The shepherds were nightshift workers. The wise men followed a star. Your first cries were heard in the shadows. To see your face Mary and Joseph needed a candle flame. It was dark. Dark with Herods jealousy. Dark with Roman oppression. Dark with poverty. Dark with violence.

Herod went on a rampage, killing babies. Joseph took you and your mom into Egypt. You were an immigrant before you were a Nazarene.

Oh, Lord Jesus, you entered the dark world of your day. Wont you enter ours? We are weary of bloodshed and pain. We, like the wise men, are looking for a star. We, like the shepherds, are kneeling at a manger.

We ask you, heal us, help us, be born anew in us.

Hopefully,

Your Children

S he had a tremble to her, the inner tremble you could feel with just a hand on her shoulder. I saw her in a grocery store. Had not seen her in some months. I asked about her kids and husband, and when I did, her eyes watered, her chin quivered, and the story spilled out. Hed left her. After twenty years of marriage, three kids, and a dozen moves, gone. Traded her in for a younger model. She did her best to maintain her composure but couldnt. The grocery store produce section became a sanctuary of sorts. Right there between the tomatoes and the heads of lettuce, she wept. We prayed. Then I said, Youll get through this. It wont be painless. It wont be quick. But God will use this mess for good. In the meantime dont be foolish or naive. But dont despair either. With Gods help you will get through this.

Two days later a friend called. Hed just been fired. The dismissal was his fault. Hed made stupid, inappropriate remarks at work. Crude, offensive statements. His boss kicked him out. Now hes a fifty-seven-year-old unemployed manager in a rotten economy. He feels terrible and sounds worse. Wife angry. Kids confused. He needed assurance, so I gave it: Youll get through this. It wont be painless. It wont be quick. But God will use this mess for good. In the meantime dont be foolish or naive. But dont despair either. With Gods help you will get through this.

Then there is the teenager I met at the caf where she works. Shes fresh out of high school, hoping to get into college next month. Her life, as it turns out, hasnt been easy. When she was six years old, her parents divorced. When she was fifteen, they remarried, only to divorce again a few months ago. Recently her parents told her to choose: live with Mom or live with Dad. She got misty-eyed as she described their announcement. I didnt have a chance to tell her this, but if I see her again, you can bet your sweet September I am going to look her square in the eyes and say, Youll get through this. It wont be painless. It wont be quick. But God will use this mess for good. In the meantime dont be foolish or naive. But dont despair either. With Gods help you will get through this.

Audacious of me, right? How dare I say such words? Where did I get the nerve to speak such a promise into tragedy? In a pit, actually. A deep, dark pit. So steep the boy could not climb out. Had he been able to, his brothers would have shoved him back down. They were the ones who had thrown him in.

So it came to pass, when Joseph had come to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him. Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it.

And they sat down to eat a meal. (Gen. 37:2325)

It was an abandoned cistern. Jagged rocks and roots extended from its sides. The seventeen-year-old boy lay at the bottom. Downy beard, spindly arms and legs. His hands were bound, ankles tied. He lay on his side, knees to chest, cramped in the small space. The sand was wet with spittle, where he had drooled. His eyes were wide with fear. His voice was hoarse from screaming. It wasnt that his brothers didnt hear him. Twenty-two years later, when a famine had tamed their swagger and guilt had dampened their pride, they would confess, We saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear (42:21).

These are the great-grandsons of Abraham. The sons of Jacob. Couriers of Gods covenant to a galaxy of people. Tribes will bear their banners. The name of Jesus Christ will appear on their family tree. They are the Scriptures equivalent of royalty. Yet on this day they were the Bronze Age version of a dysfunctional family.

They could have had their own reality TV show. In the shadow of a sycamore, in earshot of Josephs appeals, they chewed on venison and passed the wineskin. Cruel and oafish. Hearts as hard as the Canaanite desert. Lunch mattered more than their brother. They despised the boy. They hated him and could not speak peaceably to him... they hated him even more... they hated him... his brothers envied him (37:45, 8, 11).

Heres why. Their father pampered Joseph like a prized calf. Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel, but one love, Rachel. When Rachel died, Jacob kept her memory alive by fawning over their first son. The brothers worked all day. Joseph played all day. They wore clothes from a secondhand store. Jacob gave Joseph a hand-stitched, multicolored cloak with embroidered sleeves. They slept in the bunkhouse. He had a queen-sized bed in his own room. While they ran the family herd, Joseph, Daddys little darling, stayed home. Jacob treated the eleventh-born like a firstborn. The brothers spat at the sight of Joseph.

To say the family was in crisis would be like saying a grass hut might be unstable in a hurricane.

The brothers caught Joseph far from home, sixty miles away from Daddys protection, and went nuclear on him. They