We want good things. If we are honest, we will admit that we try to avoid the difficult and hard things in life. We want things that we consider to be good. What if good comes from the hard and difficult? God can change the difficult to good.

Abused by his brothers, accused of wrong doing by his boss’ wife, left in prison, and finally famine those are all “bad” things. What good can come from bad things? Yet in God’s economy the bad things can become good things. These bad things reunited Joseph with his family and allowed him to see that his brothers had changed. Through the bad there was good.

A windstorm and waves filling the boat were causing the fishermen to fear for their lives. No one wants to go through a storm like that. Yet, the storm showed the authority Jesus has over nature. This gave the disciples a new and deeper understanding of who God is. (Mark 4:35-41)

A large gathering of hungry people and not enough money to buy food. How can that be good? As a result, the crowd on the hillside learned how God can work and provide with more than enough with just five loaves and two fish. (John 6:1-15) God worked in the hard times to provide good for all the people.

The combination of thinking about goodness and reflecting on Genesis 42-49 this morning had me reflect on how God works through the difficult times to bring good. It might look like I had this all planned as I shared last week about things I learned about God through special needs parenting. Really there was no plan except to write about goodness.

What good can come from hard or difficult?

We learn more about God. Through these difficult and hard times, we learn how God provides, protects, and cares. God takes us through the difficult things so that we can learn and grow in Him.

We learn about ourselves. It can often be in these hard or difficult times that we realise how much we need God. These disciples were fishermen they had been in numerous storms but in this storm they learned that they needed Jesus and they could not rescue themselves. We learn that we need God.

We can point others to Jesus. How we respond and react can be a testimony to God’s working in our lives. People can relate to difficult experiences and it can be a time of sharing God with them. People need to see beyond the circumstances and see God not just for the help in the specific but for eternity.

How do you view the hard and difficult things in your life? Do you see God working in your life? Joseph understand that God was working good. Keep reading Genesis 50:20. It was not just for Joseph’s benefit only but also for the keeping others alive.

The hard and difficult for each of us is different. God is working in each of our hard and difficult things. He is showing us who he is. He is working for good.

Sometimes it is good to reflect and see how God is good in our hard and difficult.

Reflection Questions:

Think of something hard or difficult in your life. How has God shown that he is good through that?

What have you learned about yourself through this hard or difficult time?

How does that help you as you face other hard or difficult times in your life?