What an emotional day for Jacob and company when they learned they were leaving Canaan. Children squealed, running around in delight as the adults handled the final preparations for an unexpected road trip. The excited family members loaded into the wagons as conversations abounded about the new life waiting for them in Egypt.
What a powerful experience it must have been to see Jacob so happy. He hadn’t felt such a level of excitement in decades – since the day his sons showed him that dreaded bloody coat. But, now, he and his family left Canaan with indescribable joy.
He never imagined he’d be traveling to Egypt during a famine to see Joseph. For all the tears and heartache he shed and felt over the years, he never thought he’d one day look back at those days with a thankful heart. He, like Joseph, would come to understand and appreciate how God used every inch of pain and sorrow to bring them to an incredible season of preservation, promotion, deliverance, and hope during a famine.
That harsh season was the very season God used to reveal to Jacob and his family that He had a different plan in place for them. Salvation came from a most unlikely source, Joseph, at a most unlikely time, during a famine. That’s the power of God in action.
Could it be that God has tucked away your deliverance in a difficult season? I know, who wants to hear that? We’re all about comfort, convenience, and ease. But God doesn’t always give us easy routes to traverse.
Remember Esther and the Israelites’ difficult journey? God worked despite what Haman set up. Consider David and his encounter with Goliath. God worked despite what the Philistines deemed as an easy takedown. Think of Daniel being thrown in the lion’s den. Nothing about that situation looked like God was even paying attention to the drama. He let his enemies throw him in the den of ferocious lions. God worked despite Daniel’s enemies’ devious actions and presumptions that he wouldn’t come out alive. But God.
Difficult seasons are just that, difficult. But they possess much more in the hands of our loving God. As I said in yesterday’s devotional, He does have a plan for you! And while it may not look like it today, there will come a day/time/season that He will deliver you. You will experience headshaking, knee-slapping, shaking your head, blinking repeatedly, exhaling sweet relief at the shocking manner in which the Lord reveals that deliverance was tucked in that difficult season.
14 Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait , I say, on the LORD. (Psalm 27:14 KJV)
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28 KJV)
In the Master’s Service,
Author/Pastor Michele D Robertson
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
Matthew 11:28-29 (KJV)