“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
It’s not easy being glad about the evil things that have happened to you in life. God, however, can take the evil that has happened and use it for a good purpose.
The story of Joseph is probably the best example of this from the Bible. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, and he wound up in prison in Egypt. Through a remarkable set of circumstances, God saw to his release from prison and made him second in command in Egypt. Joseph then used his authority to save many people, including his own family, from the effects of a famine. God used the evil Joseph’s brothers perpetrated in order to do something good. Indeed, one could say that the good that came about far exceeded the evil from which it sprang.
God wants to do the same thing for us. He wants to revive, restore, and redeem us. He wants to take the evil in our past and use it for something good in the future. He wants to take all the defeats that we have experienced and use them to create victories. The more that we turn to Him, rely on Him, and have faith in Him, the more we will see His redemptive power go to work in our lives. Like Joseph in our verse for today, we will be able to say that what happened to us was truly evil, but God meant it and used it for good.
What were horrible and seemingly meaningless travesties will then take on new and meaningful purposes. They will no longer define us as victims and failures, for they will have been transformed into the stepping-stones that led to our elevation in life. They will be transformed from obstacles that stopped our forward momentum into the challenges we overcame on our way to victory.
Today, turn to God for the help you need to overcome the evil you have suffered. He will turn your story from a story of defeat and failure into a story of victory and success. Instead of a story no one wants to hear, it will become a story that everyone wants to hear again and again.
