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You Intended to Harm Me but God Intended It for Good: Turning Your Bitter Experiences into Good

In the 1994 Hollywood film titled “Forrest Gump”, one of the many words of wisdom to have come from the mouth of witless Gump, played by the actor Tom Hanks, was this—“My momma always said, “Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” Not many people will dispute with this statement of wisdom. All of us are exposed in varying degrees to a mixture of the good and the bad, the happy and the sad occasions. It is the lot of all human beings that life is indeed a box of chocolates of different shades of sweetness. It is true that some are more harshly treated by life than others. However, we all at some point in life are dished some bitterness and hardship.

The difference between success and failure is in how we respond and deal with the bitter experiences in life. Some respond to the difficulty of life by being aggressive, sour, unforgiving and even lash out their frustration on others. Others respond by being reactive, defeatist and passive, and full of despair. Still others respond with positive determination and refreshing energy to restart life again. They respond with a constructive attitude that enables them to transform their bitterness into sweetness. It is the manner in which we react to the bitter experiences in life that dictates the success.

This lack of ability to control what happens in one’s life is exceptionally true for the immigrant. Life for the immigrant is a constant exposure to chance. The immigrant’s life depends on which “chocolate” he randomly picks from the box! In addition to being at the mercy of the lottery of life, the immigrant also lacks the resources to buffer the bitterness that may result. Due to his rootlessness, the immigrant does not have as much community capital and social security to cushion him against the difficult problems of life. When life therefore turns bitter, the downward spiral for the immigrant can be very swift indeed.

The story of Joseph that is recorded in Genesis 37–50, is a dramatic illustration of how to turn the bitter experiences in life to good. This young ambitious “dreamer” learnt that life was not just a matter of “dream it and claim it and it happens”. Joseph experienced the lowest of the immigrant condition. He experienced rejection, persecution and hatred by his own relatives. He was banished, isolated in slavery, was betrayed, falsely imprisoned, and ended up in the lowest dungeon of Egypt. Joseph had every excuse in the book to develop the “victim mentality”.

Yet, out of the deepest prison of life, Joseph rose to become the prime minister of Egypt. His Spirit inspired wisdom was to save not only the foreign country where he had immigrated to but also his own family back where he had come from. This boy had every reason to feel victimized by life, persecuted by his family, mistreated by his employer, and offended by God. Instead, Joseph beams throughout the chapters of Genesis 37–50 with a sense of calmness and confidence, and even positive expectation.

In addition, Joseph became the instrument through whom God protected His people at a time of world economic crisis. Supposing Joseph had buckled under the pressure and responded to his harsh experiences with equal bitterness and anger against God, what a massive difference the story could have turned out to be. We never know how much our courage may turn out as blessings on generations to come.

What was the secret of Joseph’s success? How did he manage to turn his dreams into reality? Five features from the story of Joseph provide us the answers to these questions—Joseph was driven by a dream, pruned by suffering, proved by his moral courage, interpreted his life from God’s perspective and was favoured by God.

Driven by a Dream

The story of Joseph begins in Gen 37 with a description of a dysfunctional family in which the head of household openly showed favoritism to one of his younger sons. In addition, this favored son began having dreams that suggested that he would, in future, be the leader. Joseph then worsened the already fragile situation by blatantly bragging about his dreams. Unsurprisingly, on four occasions in the opening eleven verses of the story, the Bible repeats the refrain that Joseph’s brothers “hated him and could not speak a kind word to him” (Gen 37:4, 5, 8, 11). What was the significance of Joseph’s dreams? How did the dreams contribute to building up his character?

Though we are not explicitly told how Joseph relied on his dreams, there can be no doubt that his persistence was partly a result of the confidence that came from the dreams. Joseph’s two dreams would certainly have been at the back of his mind as he went through the dark stages of his life. The dreams stimulated a vision of possibilities. They fuelled an imagination for achieving great things. And this goal driven life was a major factor in this young man’s success.

Some may argue that, perhaps, Joseph already harbored ambitions before God showed him his dreams. Judging from his behavior after having the dreams, this is possible. Undoubtedly, his parents and brothers saw things that way. In a household that was heading for internal destruction through sibling rivalry, a desire for order was a good thing. If Joseph therefore had ambitions to restore order in the family, God was acknowledging and strengthening them through the dreams.

The fact is the story of the transformation of every society begins with a dreamer. Transformation begins when a man or woman has a positive vision, and imagination to change things. Those who lack this imagination fail their organizations. On the other hand, those who have it save them from failure. Joseph had it and God confirmed and crystallized it.

One positive characteristic of the immigrant, at least the successful immigrant, is his capacity for dreaming. Having experienced the harshness of life, the immigrant cannot but start dreaming of change. Moreover, because of his previous encounters with other cultures, the immigrant is usually more willing to consider various other ways of seeing things and solving problems. It may be that this capacity for imagination and “dreaming” is one factor that makes the immigrant a suitable agent of transformation.

God indeed regards ambitions that are aimed at building up His people as noble (1 Tim 3:1). In Christendom today, we are tending to make two types of errors in relation to this whole matter of ambitions. Either we lack ambition, or when we have it, we do not use it in the service of God’s Kingdom. There are believers who are not driven by any objectives related to fulfilling the great commission. They are like the disciples in John 4 whose imaginations were blinded to the “ripe fields” (Jn 4:35). Like the disciples, these believers busy themselves with self–preservation and fail to see God’s hand at work in their circumstances.

Yet, the imagination is so important if believers are to flourish as God’s change agents. Indeed, faith thrives on the imagination. It is when we keep imagining and seeing with our inner eye, the promises that we hear from God’s Word that our faith flourishes. So Paul prayed for the Ephesians, that “the eyes of your heart may be enlightened” in order to know God’s hope (Eph 1:18–19). If Christians of today are to transform the places where God has inserted them, they also need the same “enlightenment of the eye of the heart”. Believers fail the Lord Jesus when they sit on their hands and keep saying, “it is not possible, it has never been done this way before, it is much too difficult and it is not yet time”. And so their churches, families and communities continue to fall apart.

Thankfully, Joseph had an ambition that did not accept the disorder in his family. What Joseph lacked however, was the constraining power of God’s Spirit to channel his ambitions properly. This is the aspect of the dreams that Joseph, his father and his brothers failed to understand. Instead of carefully seeking God’s direction and the guidance of trusted people, Joseph went about bragging about his dreams to his brothers. He never pondered how his brothers would feel about the dreams. Joseph had not learnt that dream sharing is an occasion for humility, and not for gloating.

Joseph’s problem was not lack of ambitions. His problem was an ambition that was not humbled and constrained by love and consideration for others. His ambitions were not shaped by the fruit of the Spirit. Like him believers need to appreciate that their ambitions must be constrained by humility and consideration for others. Christian disciples should not trample on others, wipe their noses in the mud and manipulate them to achieve “noble” ambitions. Not even the excuse of a dream or a revelation from God justifies having to manipulate and harm the egos of others.

Joseph’s subsequent experience taught him how to let the Spirit of God constrain his ambitions. From this point on, God took over this young man’s ambitions, pruned him and made him fit for His service. Every Christian needs this pruning process.

Pruned by Suffering

If Joseph expected that the dreams would be immediately fulfilled without much tears, he was in for a big disappointment. Instead of his family rejoicing with him, his brothers hated him more. They then sold him to be a slave in a foreign land. The prince of Jacob with big ambitions of domination, turned into the slave of Potiphar, right at the bottom of the pile in a strange land. Joseph learnt that though vision is important, it was only the beginning of the hard work of fulfillment. Jesus promised that every believer who bears fruit, “God prunes so that he will be even more fruitful” (Jn 15:2). And so Joseph learnt how God prunes His servants through the suffering he experienced.