Enduring when you can’t see God

Have you ever been in a situation where you are doing what God has told you to do but things in your life keep going wrong? You would think that if you did what God asked, He would arrange life so that it wasn’t so hard all the time. Right?

Well, unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. Yes, good choices and godly behavior do result in blessings, but remember we live in a broken world. So things aren’t always going to go the way we want them to, even if we obey God.

Snow on the pine trees at Safe Haven Farm, Haven, KS

Today’s verse is Genesis 50:20-21

But Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.”

The story of Joseph is one of the most amazing stories in the Bible. Joseph is one of my heroes because no matter how bad his life circumstances got, he never gave up hope. And in the end, he understood exactly why God had put him through the difficult times. If you can think of a depressing life event, I’m willing to bet Joseph suffered through something comparable. He was hated by his brothers. Sold into slavery. Lied about and thrown in prison. Forgotten. And he’d done nothing to deserve any of it. But he endured through all of the difficult circumstances because he believed that God was going to bring something good out of it.

Sometimes it’s so hard to see God when those things happen. Sometimes it’s impossible to see Him working, but the Bible says He’s there. And it’s up to us to believe that He is until we are able to see the pieces that fit in God’ s bigger plan.

I’m currently in Kansas City at a copywriting seminar for my job. I’m staying in a swanky Marriott on the Plaza. I’m not used to this level of service at hotels, though. When I drove my little company car into the check in area, a guy in a valet outfit held my door open and welcomed me. I had to go check in, but the rule is that you have to leave your keys with the valet guys. So I did. As I walked inside, I heard the guy lock the car with the remote key. There was a little confusion at the check-in desk, so I needed to come back to my car to get the paperwork, and I was looking for the valet guy. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I needed to get the key back so I could get into the car, but I couldn’t see him. Out of frustration, I tried to open the car door anyway, knowing that it would be locked — but it wasn’t. 

As I gathered the paperwork that I needed to prove to the hotel that I had really reserved two nights, I started getting angry. I thought for sure that I’d heard the guy lock my car, but it wasn’t locked now so maybe it had been another vehicle parked there. He had my keys, and he had just walked off somewhere, leaving my car and all my stuff in the front seat with the doors unlocked!

I shut the door to the car and started to go back inside, and just as I set my hand on the door, my car locked again. Well, that didn’t make any sense to me. The car didn’t lock by itself, but I didn’t see the valet guy anywhere. I went back to the desk, cleared up the confusion about the room, and walked back to my car–and the valet guy followed me out.

He’d been standing at the back of the lobby the whole time, in perfect view of me and my car. I just couldn’t see him. He unlocked the car, held the door as I got in, and pointed me where to go to park.

I felt like a moron, and I felt like a horrible person for getting irritated. Just because I couldn’t see him didn’t mean he wasn’t there, and as I think about the story of Joseph this morning, Joseph did it right. He couldn’t see God. How could he see God in all the horrible things that were happening in his life? But he never gave up and kept moving forward, living the way he knew God would be pleased with. And in the end, Joseph could put all the pieces together to understand exactly why God had allowed the things to happen to him in the first place.

So if you’re struggling through difficulty today, don’t give up and keep pushing forward. There’s no guarantee that it’s going to get better. Actually it might get worse. And while that’s difficult to take, especially if you know you’ve done nothing to deserve it, you have to believe that God is still there working.

Even if you can’t see Him, that doesn’t mean He can’t see you.