FEAR NOT: Because God Is
Day 4Am I in the Place of God?
Scripture
Genesis 50:19–20 · · ESV
This time, the words “Fear not” were not spoken by God.
Joseph spoke the words to his brothers.
This was the same Joseph his brothers had thrown down in a dark pit. They had planned to kill him. Instead, they sold him to traders for twenty shekels of silver. The traders took Joseph to Egypt, where he was sold to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh.
A lot had happened since the day his brothers sold him.
Slavery.
False accusations.
Prison.
And now the very brothers responsible were in front of him. Their father, Jacob, was dead, and the brothers were terrified. They thought perhaps Joseph had only been waiting for their father to die before taking revenge.
But Joseph told them not to be afraid.
Joseph had the power to make them pay.
He had been wounded, but now he was powerful.
Joseph had learned something during his years apart from them.
He said, “Am I in the place of God?”
Joseph knew he was not God.
But he knew God.
God was with Joseph in slavery, with Joseph in Potiphar’s house, and with Joseph in prison.
It was God who raised Joseph to power. And somewhere on that long road, Joseph learned that other people could wound him, but they could not determine the end of his story.
That belonged to God.
And what Joseph believed about God changed the way he treated the people who had hurt him.
He looked at his brothers and said:
“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…”
Joseph did not pretend what they had done was good. He called it what it was.
Evil.
But their evil did not get the final word.
God did.
Joseph could now look backward and recognize what God had been accomplishing all along:
“…to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
The brothers had the power to wound Joseph.
They never had the power to take God’s place in his story.
And neither do the people who have hurt us.
People have hurt me or those I love. There are things I cannot undo. Wounds I cannot rewrite. Endings I cannot control. I do not have to pretend it did not hurt.
Joseph did not.
He acknowledged the evil.
But I trust God with what He does with my story.
Sometimes “Fear not” comes from the mouth of God. Sometimes it is spoken by someone who has lived long enough under His faithfulness to know that He can be trusted.
Perhaps, as we learn to trust God, we too can become people who comfort someone else’s fear.
FEAR NOT when another person’s choices have wounded your story.
BECAUSE GOD IS able to bring good from what was meant for harm.
Is there a hurt from your past that still finds its way into your thoughts today?
Prayer
You are God, and I am not. There are hurts I cannot undo and parts of my story I still do not understand. Help me trust that none of it is beyond Your reach.
You hold my story. Teach me to trust You more deeply. May the comfort You have given me become comfort I can give to others.
Amen.
Amelia