God was with HIM??

So I have this goal to read through the Bible. I think it's a great way for me to practice discipline (i.e. once I decide to do something, I should stick to that decision regardless of whether I want to do so).

In accomplishing this "reading through the Bible" thing, I've decided to try to read my Bible daily. I know, you may be thinking, "You don't read your Bible daily?? Who do you think you are?? But its your 'DAILY bread'. 'Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every Word that preceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. Matt 4:4 ' "

I know. I know. The world wasn't built in a day (<< style="font-size:130%;">THE WORLD to me. Having these feelings is meaningless without the actions that corroborate them. I want God to see that I love Him. I completely understand that I could NEVER EARN His love, but that doesn't prevent me from showing Him my love. Geeze.

Anywho, back to the Bible-reading.

I'm reading the story of Joseph (around Genesis 38), and I was thinking about all the obstacles in Joseph's life.

His father loved him more than his other brothers (not the obstacle part) and his brothers knew this (the obstacle part). To add insult to injury, Joseph wasn't shy about showing his brothers the gifts his father gave him.

[That actually kinda led me to believe Joseph may have been a little naive (Naive: (adj) Leslie's middle name). If I knew that a group of strong, towering men disliked me AND I knew why, I definitely wouldn't fuel that fire.]

Now to get to the point of God was with HIM??.

God was right there with him, when he was sold into slavery by his own brothers, He was with Him when he was promoted to head of Potiphar's home and all his possessions, He was with him when he was thrown into prison and falsely accused of propositioning Potiphar's wife, He was with Him when he was promoted to keeper of all the prisoners in Potiphar's prison - and that's as far as I've gotten so far.

When Joseph was the apple of his father's eye or the keeper of all Potiphar's possessions, the Lord was with him. When Joseph was at the bottom of the bottom as slave to the Ishmaelites, the Lord was still with him.

What I got from all this: Having the Lord on our side, and constantly being in His presence doesn't mean that life will always be a "walk in the park" - although depending on the size of the park, the terrain, the heat index, and the humidity, that doesn't really seem like the best part of the Life is GOOD/TERRIBLE spectrum, lol. It just means that He is with us in the midst of it all.

For so long (i.e. forever), I wondered what the reasons were for my life being so sucky. I wondered "Ohhh, what I have I done to deserve such a sucky life." And actually, what I wondered went more like "I HAVEN'T done anything to deserve this life, so why do I have it? Why am I the one always struggling, et cetera et cetera et cetera."

SILLY ME.

Who am I, to think that my life is supposed to be without difficulty? What basis do I have to make such an ignorant assumption? Just like God doesn't have to explain His blessings, He doesn't have to explain the, sometimes circuitous, paths that lead to those blessings. If He did, more than likely, I wouldn't understand. His knowledge bank, compared to mine, is....well....to put it modestly....a gazillion times fuller. It's the trials and the obstacles that make the success so much more rewarding.

Isaiah 43:2 kinda sums up what I'm getting at here. It's a great scripture. Oh, and there are plenty of stories with a similar theme - Job is the one that sticks out to me.

Have a blessed weekend remembering the incredible SACRIFICE our Savior made for us ALL!!!!