I feel I need to confess that I have had the wrong mindset about God. I have made Him too small in my eyes and I have magnified my challenging circumstances throughout my years as a Christian. Again, I have had to repent for having distorted thoughts about God. And I haven’t stopped repenting yet because I realize how foolish I have been since I continue leaning on my own understanding. Therefore, I have not put Jesus as Lord over every area of my life. Instead, I have made bad situations my focus and so I have made them lord over me. I can say that there is nothing too hard for the Lord, but do I really believe it and live like this. I think Don Moen’s song, “Be Magnified” describes well the state of my mind.
I have made You too small in my eyes / O Lord, forgive me / And I have believed in a lie / That You were unable to help me / But now, O Lord, I see my wrong / Heal my heart and show Yourself strong / And in my eyes and with my song / O Lord, be magnified / O Lord, be magnified
No situation is too big for the Lord. Believing it is bigger than God can handle is a lie from Satan, who is the father of lies. Actually, that bad situation many just be where God wants us, and it is strategic. Joseph was wrongly imprisoned and forgotten, but he was strategically positioned in prison for God’s purpose. He was placed where the king’s prisoners were confined, so he was in the right place to interpret Pharaoh’s cup bearer’s dream. And his interpretation was correct. Within three days the cup bearer was returned to his position, but forgot about Joseph until two years later when Pharaoh had a dream and none of the Egyptian magicians could interpret the dream. So in comes Joseph from prison to palace. The cup bearer just happened to remember him at the right time. And, Joseph was humble and attributed God with interpreting the dream.
Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, but no one can interpret it; and I have heard it said about you, that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.” Joseph then answered Pharaoh, saying, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer.” Genesis 41:15-16
Even after being sold by his brothers into slavery and having a jail sentence when his scheming master’s wife lied about him, he still had total reliance on God. When he later forgave his brothers and saved his family from a famine, he told them that what they meant as evil against him, God meant it for good in order to bring about the preservation of many people. (See Genesis 50:20).
All the time, God was working out His good plan in every bad situation. He was totally in control when everything in Joseph’s life seemed to be in chaos. Joseph may have felt alone and forgotten, but God always had His eyes on him. And to Joseph’s credit, he never stopped trusting God even though his family and so many others had failed him. We must be careful who we trust, because man may fail us, but God never will.
Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. “For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt without inhabitant. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit. Jeremiah 17:5-8
These are the Lord’s words. We should never let our faith rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of the Lord (see 1 Corinthians 2:5).
“Woe to the rebellious children,” declares the Lord, “Who execute a plan, but not Mine, and make an alliance, but not of My Spirit, in order to add sin to sin; Who proceed down to Egypt Without consulting Me, To take refuge in the safety of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! “Therefore the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation. Isaiah 30:1-3
Do we ever think that when we make plans without the Lord’s counsel that we are in rebellion and that when we go to others for help and refuge, instead of Him that He is not pleased with us? God expects us to have total reliance on Him for everything in our lives. However, I must say that this can be difficult in our digital age where information is literally at our fingertips when we can go to Google for help and artificial intelligence gives us answers. It is easy to find solutions elsewhere other than from God, which could be the devil’s trap to get us off the Lord’s path. The now deceased evangelist, Oswald Chambers, has a profound quote – “The good is always the enemy of the best”. All these different ways of deriving information may be good, but they may keep us from seeking God first in all things and having total reliance on Him, which is the best thing to do. So, let us seek out His divine wisdom first before we fall prey to the wisdom of the world.
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