“But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good …” (Genesis 50:20)
How do we process pain? Firstly, we want to locate where it’s coming from in order to stop it. But what if we can’t stop it? What if those who are causing us pain keep inflicting it upon us?
As a boy, Joseph lived in a painful environment. As much as he knew his father loved him, he knew his brothers hated him. Speech reveals attitude. “… They hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him” (Gen. 37:4). With each passing day they hated him more, until they sought to kill him. “Come now therefore, and let us slay him …” (Gen. 37:20).
Only by God’s intervention, through Reuben, did Joseph escape death. Sold into the hands of Midianite merchants, he ended up alone in Egypt. How did Joseph process what had happened to him? Surely, he was deeply affected by these events. “The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy” (Prov. 14:10). The beauty of the story of Joseph is what he does with his pain. “The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” (Proverbs 27:7)
The pain we experience through the words, actions, and attitudes of others has the power to destroy us. We cannot process such blows to our spirit without God’s help. Both evil done to us, or good not done to us, can embitter us to such a degree that we ourselves turn hateful. But because God was with Joseph to help him process his pain, he did not return evil with evil when he had the opportunity to do so. “Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them” (Gen. 50:21).
Jacob knew the secret of his son’s overcoming. He knew how Joseph was able to stay strong and healthy of mind and spirit even after receiving such painful treatment from brothers who should have loved him.
“Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: The archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel:)” (Gen. 49:22-24)
None of us will escape pain in this life. Each of us knows what has been done to us. We know how it has made us feel. There are times when we have been despised, rejected, unloved, hated. We are insufficient of ourselves to process such suffering of heart and come out on the other side the better for it. We need the very Spirit of Christ to heal our wounds and redeem our past and present pain. Only through Him can every bitter thing be made sweet.
Perhaps it will take us years to fully grasp how God was using the wrath of man to praise Him. Let us rest in the arms of Him who loves us dearly when others do not. In the end, we will know how God worked it all together for good.