Joseph & Disappointment With God
Disappointment with God - now there’s a good book authored by Philip Yancey who has written many good, inspirational and teaching books. Most definately one of my favourite Christian authors. Anyway ‘disappointment with God’ is what Tim and I have been dealing with over the last few days. We recently had a situation in our lives where we trusted God; we chose to have faith that God would provide - we were believing for it. And he did come through for us, but . . .
. . . how God came through did not fit the picture we were believing for, having faith for and trusting for. Now, before I go into our story, let me tell you about Joseph and where he fits in to our story. The day after our disappointment with God I had actually managed to arise before 7am and was spending some wonderful time alone with God in the early hours of the morning. I love this time, the house is still and quiet, apart from me, everyone else is still sleeping and outside I can hear birds chirping and singing. This time of morning, alone and quiet, restores my soul and rejuvinates me and it is when God is most likely to speak to me as I pray about the day just gone and the new one just beginning.
Anyway, I was sitting on the couch talking with God about the events of yesterday and how I was feeling - again (we’d already chatted several times yesterday, but now was the first uninterrupted time I’d had). Now I can’t remember exactly how this happened, because the reality is I finally get to finish this post a month after the event and which was some time around the 10th of December 2007 (although I don’t publish it til now - I was hoping to get a few other posts that are in drafts published first, but that’s not looking likely in the near future with all the mad packing we’re doing right now, so I thought I’d put it up now and apologise in advance to reference to other posts that are not published yet!). In my memory, it goes something like this…
After sharing how I was feeling - disappointed, let down, confused were the predominant ones - but I was grateful and thankful towards God, because he had come through, just not in the way I had been hoping. God “said” to me (as I write this one month later, it feels like God said it, but there was no audible voice, just a very strong sense of God saying it - when I was explaining it to Brydon, I told him I saw the words in my mind and felt them in my heart) “Remember Joseph”. Now, I do not remember if “remember Joseph” came to me before or after I read my bible, where I read Psalm 105 where Joseph got a mention, which happened to be the Psalm I was up to
~ Psalm 105:16-23 ~
God called for a famine on the land of Canaan, cutting off its food supply.
Then he sent someone to Egypt ahead of them – Joseph, who was sold as a slave.
There in prison, they bruised his feet with fetters and placed his neck in an iron collar.
Until the time came to fulfil his word, the Lord tested Joseph’s character.
Then Pharaoh sent for him and set him free; the ruler of the nation opened his prison door.
Joseph was put in charge of all the king’s household; he became ruler over all the king’s possessions.
He could instruct the king’s aides as he pleased and teach the king’s advisers.
Then Israel arrived in Egypt; Jacob lived as a foreigner in the land of Ham.
Verses 16-23 really caught my attention, especially, ‘until the time came to fulfil his word, the Lord tested Joseph’s character.’ And I had the very distinct impression that I needed to take another look at the life of Joseph.
Okay, now I’m going to leave Joseph’s story for a bit and jump back to ours. As Tim is the major breadwinner, things have been getting tighter and tighter financially over the year as we continued to live with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and deal with the effects that it is having on our lives. Tim is one of the “lucky” ones, he can still work, kind of. He averages about 3½ hours a day, which in reality is not enough for us to live on. Our pastor recently said to us he doesn’t know how we are surviving; I guess that’s just another example of God’s provision, I mean realistically, we shouldn’t be even surviving, we should have crashed or gone under ages ago.
On that note Tim had an interesting dream recently about us sleeping on a yacht about to set off on a great adventure the next day. When he woke he realised we were drifting and he could see lots of rocks in the water and somehow we were just passing over them instead of crashing into them, when we should have been crashing into them. Seems like we’re already on our great adventure even though we haven’t left yet! And God is looking after us, thank goodnes! Check out Tim’s post ‘Almost Crashing On The Rocks’.
Anyway, back to our financial difficulties…we knew that come December we just did not have enough money to pay the rent - $1,000+. It worked out that we were around $300 short, and that was just for the rent, it did not include any of the other bills coming up that month! We knew that God would look after us, God would provide just like he has done every other time and just like he says he will in the bible. So we trusted that God would take care of it and we took our own hands off it; we chose to leave it in his hands and did nothing to make it happen.
So, why the heck did we do that?! Well . . . Tim and I (especially Tim, especially when it’s to do with money) are very good at fixing things ourselves instead of trusting in God. And Tim really felt the need to take his hands off and let God work to practice trusting him and “exercising our faith muscle”. So this time, instead of us juggling things around and doing it all ourselves (which has been known to happen) and coming to God when all other possibilities are exhausted, we went to God first.
Now, we were expecting God to do something miraculous; you know, like a complete stranger coming up to us and giving us the rent money. Or even just someone we knew, especially someone who didn’t know our situation. It has happened before, so we kinda expected it to happen again. It didn’t.
What we found disheartening and disappointing in this situation was that we trusted, we believed, we had faith right up til the end when by 3pm of the afternoon the rent was due to be paid and nothing ‘miraculous’ in the way we had been believing for eventuated. Except for one major bill coming in at $300 less. This meant, with a bit of juggling and stuff we could scrape together just enough money to pay the rent.
Needless to say, we were quite despondant. God had not come through for us in the way we had believed and trusted him to. It so often seems to us, that yes, God does come through, all the time, but in a very low key kinda way. Because it is such a low key kinda way, we still have to struggle, strive and juggle things around to help make it happen. And then the miraculous provision of God just doesn’t seem all that miraculous to me. Hmmm. I’m lookin’ for and hopin’ for the big bang, the big miracle, but we don’t get that, we get the small gentle one, the one that is barely noticed, not even by us! God looks after us, I know this, the bible says it and I’ve experienced it, again and again and again. In Matthew 6:25-26 it says:
That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life - whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?…
This was one of the promises of God we were clinging to, believing, trusting, claiming. God did provide, just not in the way we wanted. Tim wrote a post about what ‘look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?’ and what this actually looks like. It’s called By My Own Effort.
All the while, as we were getting closer and closer to “D-day” (rent due), I had been saying to God and to whoever would listen, that I would trust in God no matter what, even if he did not pay the rent I would still trust him, he would still be my God. ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust him’ Job 13:15 King James and from Daniel 3:17-18 in Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego & the fiery furnace ‘. . . the God whom I serve and worship is able to save me. He will rescue me. But even if He doesn’t, He is still my God and I will not lose my faith and trust in Him.’ (my paraphrase)
Interestingly enough, the rent did get paid, just not in the supernatural miraculous way I’d been believing for, so my faith wasn’t put to quite such an extreme test, but that didn’t stop me from being disappointed and despondant. But before I could head far down that path, God reminded me of what I had been saying and proclaiming, while I was still feeling so low which gave me the gentle wake up call I needed. My childish fit of pique, “I wanted the red one NOT the blue one!” passed fairly quickly and I was able to thank him for providing and go to my group that night giving God the glory. He HAD provided, it just wasn’t quite the way I’d wanted.
Throughout my posts I often write about how God is working in my life and what he is teaching me, what I am learning and this situation was no different; already I have mentioned some, but there was still more! It’s a bit like a Demtel ad! I have written a post called ‘Wounded’ (still in drafts) it is about how God is dealing with and healing my “father wound” (the books ‘Captivating’ & ‘Wild At Heart’ by John & Stasi Eldredge go into this in depth). God and I have come a long way with it but I know it was not finished with yet. In this last month while wondering (and worrying - I couldn’t help it, but each time I did when I realised what I was doing I would go back to God’s promises and say them out loud and stuff; sometimes I’d be doing it several times a day!) how the rent would get paid, a bit more of the “father wound” surfaced.
I had a phone call with Dad which ended up with me in tears (not altogether that unusual) but this time I took the initiative; I told him I loved him but couldn’t talk any more and hung up! I knew that I couldn’t talk to him about it so I wrote him a letter explaining how I felt and why, all the time reaffirming that I loved him (which I honestly did and do). I talked with mum a couple of days later and she said she’d read the letter too and said that it had shocked him. Dad and I still haven’t actually talked about it, but the last few times we got together have been better - he is making an effort and so am I.
But that was not all! The rent was due on Monday and all day the Friday before I was depressed; I just kept bursting into tears and falling apart. Later one of my friends said to me, “why didn’t you call?” I thought about it, but I was thinking, “I wish someone would call me”. Hmmm, perhaps instead of dwelling in self pity, I should have given someone a call. Oh well, I didn’t, but that didn’t stop God from working - thankfully! By the end of the day, I had to go to the shops and in doing so I bumped into our over the road neighbour (not literally!); we were chatting and he asked how things were, so I told him. As I was talking, I was also listening to myself and I realised that I no longer sounded as though I trusted God to provide. I was quite disappointed.
Driving home, I thought about it. I apologised to God - I’d blown a great “witnessing” opportunity, but God used it to reveal more of the “father wound” hidden deep down in my heart. It was not a conscious thought, not even a semi conscious one but that thinking, that thought had influenced my whole day. It was, ‘if God doesn’t pay the rent then he doesn’t love me’. God hadn’t paid the rent yet, and so I was beginning to question whether or not he truly loved me and that was why I had been so depressed all day! Still buried deep within my heart was the thought God didn’t really love me; he might say it in the bible, and he might even actaully like me, but he doesn’t really, truly love me. Hmmm, even after writing the poem ‘My Daughter’ (God’s love poem to me) I was still struggling with this - ‘does God really love me? Is his heart towards me truly good?’
I guess this is one of those arrows John Eldredge talks about, and this one has lodged deep; this is the place my enemy, God’s enemy, has attacked again and again and again, but God is working here. I am changing. So when the rent didn’t get paid the way I had been expecting, believing for and trusting for, I was disappointed and upset, but I didn’t feel unloved by God. I knew that God loved me still and his heart towards me is good! And I know that the thought ‘God doesn’t really love me’ was not just my own. My enemy had placed it there! I had agreed with it and made it my own, but my enemy who hates me, fears me and seeks to destroy me planted it there.
So right then and there, as I was driving home, I asked God to forgive me and I renounced the thinking, the agreement I had made, giving the devil a foothold. I was free and a little more healed of this wound, although I would be surprised if it was dealt with completely. I believe there will be more to work through in the future.
So what’s all this got to do with Joseph’s story? After having God remind me of Joseph, I stopped and took a look at his life. The part about Joseph in Psalm 105. The first thing that struck me about Joseph was if we were so disappointed in God for not paying the rent supernaturally (although he did) how disappointed and despondant poor old Joseph must have felt throughout his time in Egypt.
At the age of 17 God gave Joseph two pretty amazing dreams. Not long after that, he got ‘railroaded’; his brothers were going to kill him, but sold him as a slave instead. In Egypt he was Potiphar’s slave and was falsely accused and then thrown into prison. He interpreted some dreams and thought he had his ticket out of there, but it still took another two years!
So in my humble opinion, Joseph had every “right”, every “reason” to be despondant, depressed and disappointed with God. How Joseph was feeling is not described in the scriptures, but if it had been me, I would have been asking God an awful lot of questions like, “why me?” “what did I do wrong?” “what’s going on God?” But even if Joseph was feeling like this, he still trusted, he still believed, he still had faith in his God and everywhere he was he did what he could and he worked hard.
According to the bible, Joseph was 17 when he received the dreams and he was 30 when Pharoah released him from prison. So far 13 years have passed him by and a considerable amount of them were spent as a slave or a slave in prison. Once he was freed from prison there was the seven years of bumper crop harvests - so now 20 years have passed. And then there comes seven years of famine. I don’t know how many years into the famine it was before Joseph’s brothers came to Egypt, but, it wouldn’t have been straight away, I reckon there must have been at least one year of famine before Israel sent his sons to Egypt to get grain. So, by my calculations, it took at least 21 years, quite possibly more, before Joseph’s dreams at 17 became a reality!!! Twenty-One years!!! Aaaggh!!!
And here I am complaining that it’s been 18 months since my visions and I’m disappointed that God didn’t pay the rent with bells and whistles, supernaturally, miraculously. Oh please!! Although, if it takes 20+ years from go to woe, I’m gonna be almost 60!!! In the immortal words of Daffy Duck, “Yikes!”
But the verse that really spoke to me about Joseph was verse 19 in Psalm 105, ‘Until the time came to fulfil his word, the Lord tested Joseph’s character’. God is testing our character, refining us. He has a job for us to do and he’s making sure we’re ready and able to do it, and that means we will keep on getting tested, again and again and again and again! Until we are ready enough to be released; we won’t be perfect, but we’ll be ready to go and the rest of the refining will happen along the way. Check out my posts ‘A Refiner & Purifier Of Silver ~ Malachi 3:3′ and ‘Stepping Into A New Life - The Battle Rages Still!’
Don’t know how often I “pass”, because I sure as heck feel like I fail an awful lot of the time! But two things encourage me. The first and most important being, that God never gives up on me, even when I stuff up big time and it is entirely my fault, ‘I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins’ and ‘I am free from condemnation’. Thank you Jesus! Honestly, I do feel like I fail an awful lot of the time, but I guess the reality is that I don’t fail, because I don’t give up, I don’t quit. So every time I “fail”, I could call it a “momentary set-back” or a “stepping stone” instead. And verse 19 gives me hope ~ I feel like having our characters tested and refined is what has been happening to us over the last 18months; and the fire got even hotter in the last six months, as God turns up the heat to refine us and test our characters further.
I mean, God has plans for us, plans for us that glorify him and he trusts us to do that (don’t know that I would trust me, but anyhow); but for us to fullfil those plans and the role we have yet to play, we need to be tested, we need to be refined. John Eldredge says in ‘Epic’ (and other books) that this role we have to play, in this drama unfolding around us, is crucial; my role is crucial; I am crucial! And if my role is so crucial, then God doesn’t want to send me out unprepared, and quite frankly, I don’t want to go out unprepared either!
Recently, after going through all of this and thinking about it heaps Tim came across someone else on the ‘Not Crazy’ forum also posting on a Joseph devotional they had recently received, called ‘Times Of Testing’ and all scripture is from the NIV. Three things stood out to me in this devotional and all of them encourage me and give me hope.
- When God’s going to build something great He takes extra time to lay the foundation. “Jesus grew…in favour with God and men” Luke 2:52. Allow yourself time to grow!
- …preparation always precedes promotion. God told the prophet Elijah to go and hide himself by the brook Cherith (1 Kings 17:3). Before he could call down fire from Heaven and defeat the prophets of Baal, Elijah had to spend time hidden away with God. There are some insights you only gain by spending quality time with God.
- God may not come when you want Him to, but He’ll always be on time - if you wait on Him. “No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly” Psalm 84:11. His delays are not his denials. He’s never said anything He couldn’t back up or promised anything He wouldn’t deliver. So disregard the circumstances and stand on the word God has given you!
It took 20+ years before those dreams of Joseph’s came to pass and about 13 of those years were years of preparation before Joseph was the man God had created him to be and ready to play his part in the story; his crucial role. It’s only been about eighteen months for me and already I’m asking, “How Long God?”!!!
Another thing I have in common with Joseph were these amazing dreams, although mine were visions and I don’t think they’re on parr with Joseph’s, but anyway. . . if you wanna read them check out the ‘Stepping Into A New Life’ posts (it comes in four parts!) - I used the sword of the spirit and stepped into a new life; there was a white house on a cliff and money falling from Heaven. I had these visions one after the other over about a month in July/August 2006 and as yet they don’t appear to have come to pass! As I have already shared several times in this post, it took over twenty years before Joseph’s dreams became reality - and I really do hope that this is not the case for us or I’m gonna be around sixty! But as was recently pointed out to me, (and is yet another thing for me to process and work through) don’t worry, there’s still eternity! Hmmmm.
Once God showed me these visions I thought my life, and our life as a family, was going to change dramatically, things were going to start falling into place and great stuff was about to happen. Instead, our world just fell apart, and it wasn’t that bad when compared to what can happen when world’s fall apart, I mean nobody died (except Grandma, but that was expected, I mean, she was 100! Still, it was hard and it was just one more thing in the string of things happening in our life) and there were no serious injuries, car accidents, houses burning down or that kinda stuff - no Job experiences - and I am very, very grateful for that. So, life did change dramatically, just not in the way I was expecting or hoping for, again, kinda like Joseph.
Still there are times when I wonder if perhaps I’m just being totally decieved, and I imagine that Joseph might have felt that way too! ‘Jospeh’s faith was being tested by the very promises God gave him. Can’t you hear Satan whisper; “I thought your dream said you were supposed to be sitting on a throne. What are you doing here in prison?”‘ from ‘Times of Testing’. And, I must admit, there are times when I wonder, and my thoughts went and still go, something like this, ‘did I really have those visions or was it just my imagination going crazy? Was it really God or was it just me? And when is it gonna happen? I mean, come on, it’be been a week already! We’ve stepped into ur new life, where’s the money, where’s the supernatural provision from heaven and where’s that white house on a cliff? I’m hanging to move in!!!…’ And so it continued, and as I’ve already mentioned, it’s been eighteen months and we still haven’t moved into the white house on a cliff and the supernatural supply, well . . . I know something’s happening or we’d have gone under already, but what’s happening is only just enough for us to scrape by, not the abundance I saw falling from heaven. ‘So why isn’t it happening? Is it all in my head? Am I nuts? This is nuts, just forget about it. These kinds of miracles are for other people not me . . ‘ Sometimes I am quite relaxed about all this, it’s in God’s timing, not mine, God is in control, I am his child, all things work together for good, I am being perfected, nothing can separate me from the love of God . . . and other times, I am not.
Joseph was a slave, I didn’t think I was, I mean, Jesus has set me free, but . . . I have discovered so much garbage in my life that I’ve been wading through recently, so many deceptions have been and are being revealed, removed and healed. So, in hindsight, Yeah I’d say I was a slave. I am certainly much freer now than I’ve ever been before, but I can see that I’ve got a long way to go yet! And then there’s the prison thing - I’ve felt as though I’ve been in prison for a long time, most of my life actually, but it became especially noticeable in the last two or three years. I expected to be released from it December/January 2006/7, by moving into a newer, bigger house, but a year later we’re still here. I hope it’s not another year before we go, this time not settling for a newer, bigger house, because that’s not what I really want and that would just be another prison, it would probably just take me a while to realise it! This time we are planning on leaving on our great adventure that we believe God has called us on, it’s all in his timing but we really, really want to be gone by the end of March. God has put this desire to travel around the country in our hearts - we know that this journey is both physical AND spiritual - it’s a journey where we rediscover our true hearts, our true purpose, where our dreams and desires are reawakened, rebirthed, where we walk closer with God, appreciating his goodness, his creation and his people while he leads us on a great adventure romance.
It is crucial that we go. Crucial for our own sanity, our hearts, we’ll die if we stay, like a wild bird trapped in a cage, we’ll pine for our freedom and eventually a part of us will die, give up on life, adventure and romance. It’s happened before, we’ve had dreams and desires and we’ve just let them go. No, that’s not entirely true, we’ve given up and let them die. In the last two years some of those dreams and desires have been reawakened and are burning within us once more. Everybody tells you it’s in God’s timing when things don’t come to pass the way you’ve been hoping for, praying for, believing for. It’s always easy for other people to give you pious platitudes, it’s not so easy accepting them let alone understanding them. I think now that I have a better understanding of “God’s timing” especially after taking a good hard look at Joseph’s life. Some of the dreams I’ve had I was just not “mature” enough (still debatable) to actually carry them out and so God has been going to work on me, on my character, because it is on my character that everything else rises or falls, and I know that I have some seriously major issues that need to be sorted and healed so I can fulfill the purposes and plans God has for my life. So our trip, our journey - the physical aspect - is entirely in God’s hands; financially we are just not in a position to get the stuff together we need to go nor are we in a position to support ourselves in the ususal way as we travel, and yet, we feel and believe that God has called us to this journey, this adventure, so we know that if this is the case, he will make a way for it to happen. Just before Christmas God blessed us with a tax return of “gigantic” proportions. We thought it would be the money we needed to buy all the supplies we needed to be on our way, including one of those camper traliers, but more and more I am believing that this particular blessing was to support us over the next few months and somehow there will be another supernatural provision that provides us with all the equipment we need to make this trip. It won’t be in our original time frame, which we know now to be unrealistic considering Tim’s health, perhaps if we hadn’t had the health, emotional and financial issues we could have got it all happening in six months… Whatever happens though, it is all in God’s hands and we trust Him, everyday we trust Him more and more. And I am so grateful for the lessons God has been teaching us over this time since we stepped into our new lives and began living the life God has called us to.
But it is also crucial we go for the people we will meet and touch on our journey. In my prayers about this journey I have seen our ‘Google’ Australia map we have on our ‘The Great Adventure’ site overlaid with another map, also of Australia. This map also shows where we our journey has taken us, where we have been, but what it is actually showing is not our route, but the lives we have touched and impacted, the souls we have brought closer to God! This journey is crucial for us, for our hearts and for the hearts of others; we have a crucial role to play and we need to fight for this because it will be, and is being opposed by the enemy of our hearts, for he does not want us to follow our hearts and realise the dreams God has placed in them.
We were planning on leaving early February, which as I write this is less than two weeks away!!! However, Tim needs to have some Chronic Fatigue Syndrome related tests done which won’t happen til late February. Hopefully it’s just one month that we postpone and we leave around the start of March. And honestly, I know I’m not ready yet, perhaps I never will be, but physically, we’ve still got a lot to do, although it is getting there, but I still have heaps of research to do, like ‘dutch oven & campfire cooking’ and we’re still trying to decide which camper trailer is the one for us - there are just soooo many of them to choose from! So anyway, shifting our departure date back one month, maybe a little longer just gives us a bit more time to get a lot more organised!!!
So what have I learnt about Joseph & Disappointment With God? So much, so much, but mostly, just to keep on trusting my God. The visions he has given me will come to pass, but in his time not mine, and obviously (which I actually know quite well) there is still much work to be done on my character and on Tim’s and our family and some of this needs to be sorted before we can start out otherwise we are just not gonna be able to cut it! Patience. That’s another thing I’m learning. Patience, Trust, Faith and that God is working on my character. Sure things are tough, but this is the refining fire and if I don’t go through it I will stay the same and not become the woman God has created me to be. And hope, be true to my heart and live from the heart, not from my false self - it might be less painful that way, but then I become trapped in a life that truly is not worth much. Despite his circumstances Joseph trusted God and served God, never giving up on his faith and hope in his God. It took 13 years before he was raised up as Pharoah’s right hand man; 13 years for God to shape his character so Joseph was the man God had created him to be. I can wait. I will put my hope and my trust in my God who loves me and cares for me and all will be well.
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