Making Sense of Your Life – Part 1: Who’s in Charge?

“I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his family went down to Egypt.” (Joshua 24:4)

Whether you have a PhD or have dropped out of school, you have undoubtedly faced problems. We all do; and sometimes we can’t make sense out of life. We make plans, and things don’t work out; or the unexpected happens; or we end up with an unintended consequence. And though we’re serving God, things seem at times to be out of control, leaving us to wonder what in the world is going on!

That may have been true for the people of Israel as they heard Joshua recount the Lord’s dealings with his people. The patriarch, Jacob, was one of two brothers who were fraternal twins. Esau, the other brother, sold his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew, showing by this action that he despised the blessings of God. Therefore, God rejected him as an heir to the promises he had made to his ancestor Abraham. Yet Joshua says that God later blessed Esau with the mountainous area of Seir, from which he and his descendants could easily mount a defense if anyone were coming against them. On the other hand, Jacob—the son of blessing, the one who despite his shortcomings had through God’s sovereignty gained acceptance by God—was shipped off to Egypt with his family, where they would become slaves. That seems to make no sense!

Before we can make sense of this account in the Bible and of the things that happen in our own lives, we have to understand God. Because we’re not in charge of the universe; God is. And our days are numbered according to his plan for every one of us. God’s main goal for his people is to make us men and women of faith. So, he permits us to get into situations where we have to learn to trust him. Why in the world would we have to trust God when everything is working out just fine? No, it’s in the valley that he restores our soul.

God was saying, “Jacob I love, and I’m going to make him and his people men and women of faith; so I’m going to let them face difficult situations.” We’re all in the school of faith, and this explains so many things in life that we can now better understand. How are we going to believe unless we experience trouble? How are we going to learn to trust God unless it hurts sometimes—unless there are difficulties? God wants us to convey faith to others and inspire them to believe; but we can’t get someone else to believe in God when we ourselves have never had to believe, when we’ve never seen what he can do.

Out of their faith in God, what he gave Jacob and the people of Israel, and what he gives you and me, is a testimony. The people of Israel still sing songs today—thousands of years later—about how they were in Egypt, but God delivered them. A testimony is not something you memorize and recite; it’s a life experience where you’ve had to trust God, and you’ve seen him bring you through, making it possible for you to help others who are down in the valley. Now you can lift them up, because you can say, “Don’t give up! I too was ready to give up; but what he did for me, he can do for you!”

To be continued…