Day 4: But God: Reinterpreting Your Story
There is a version of your story that ends with what they did to you. That is the version you have told the most, maybe the only version you know how to tell. Joseph had one of those versions too, and everything in it was true: brothers who hated him, a pit, a slave auction, a false accusation, years in a forgotten cell.
He does not rewrite any of it. He does not tell his brothers it was not that bad, or that the pit was not as dark as it felt. He calls it exactly what it was: evil. Then he says two words that change the ending without changing the facts. But God.
Forgiveness does not require you to minimize what was done to you. Say it was serious. Say it was wicked. Say it was unjust, because it was. But after you have named it honestly, the real question is whether you are willing to let two words sit next to it. Not that God caused the harm, but that he is sovereign enough to take what was aimed at your destruction and weave it into something redemptive. Paul puts it this way: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Joseph could say this because he was living inside a bigger pattern, one that would reach its fullest point centuries later when another innocent man was handed over by people who should have protected him, and what his enemies meant for death, God turned into salvation for the world.
What happened to you may explain you. It does not get to define you.
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
- What is the version of your story you tell that ends with what they did, full stop?
- Where have you confused naming your pain honestly with staying stuck in it?
- Does the resurrection give you enough evidence to trust God with an ending you cannot see yet?
PRACTICAL APPLICATION
Write one sentence naming your wound honestly, without softening it. Then write a second sentence that starts with “but God.” If you cannot finish it yet, that is fine, leave it open. But do not skip the first sentence to avoid the second. Pray for the faith to keep writing.