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by GLENN PEASE
01/22/18
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Based on Gen. 42:18-28

      Myron Maddsen, an outstanding author, speaker, and Christian leader in New Orleans, tells of his experience of interpreting his Bible story book as a young boy. He noted that all the characters had long flowing garments down to their feet, and angels had similar garb. So he concluded that only women were chosen by God, for he saw all of them wearing dresses. One day he got up the nerve to ask his mother why there aren't any men in heaven? His mother laughed heartily and asked where he got the idea that there was not men there. He told her that his Bible story book had only pictures of women and children. She explained to him that the men in the pictures were not wearing dresses, but robes. This was the greatest revelation of his life up to that point, for he was fearful that his only hope of getting to heaven was to die young or have a sex change.

       He thought he was just dealing with the facts right before his face, but he was really dealing with his interpretation of what he saw, and that was far different from the reality of what was being pictured. There is more to life than what we see. A Mr. Goff was riding on a train and he saw a man off on the side of the road fixing a flat in the rain. He said to himself, "Poor fellow," and he turned to the man next to him and said, "I wonder when they are going to make a tire that won't go flat?" The man responded, "I hope never. I sell tires, and the trouble is they make them so good now I can hardly make a living."

       Mr. Goff was suddenly made to realize that there is more than one perspective on what seems obviously bad. I remember when I was made to see this. I use to play tennis with a vet who went to my church in South Dakota. Most of members were farmers, and so I was conscious of how important healthy animals were to them. But the vet informed me that if animals never got sick he would have no work and no income. He was a tither also, and so I wondered what I should do as a pastor to encourage him. Should I pray that the other member's animals get sick so he could increase his giving? I didn't do that, but it made me realize that a sick cow which was a burden to one member was a blessing to another member. I was able to see that the same event could be seen as both good and bad because there was more than one perspective.

      Joseph had this ability to see life from more than one perspective. His father Jacob, however, tended to see only his own self-centered per-spective, and that is why he is groaning that everything is against him. The ten brothers are feeling the same, and they concluded that God was punishing them even when He was really blessing them. If Joseph would have seen only what was visible, imagine how depressing it would be. His brothers rejected him, and they sold him into slavery. His master had him thrown in prison for a false charge. Not everything was going his way at all. If facts are all you go by, Joseph is the one who should be saying that everything is against him. But we never hear that from Joseph, for he is able to see there more to life than what meets the eye.

     Faith says there is another perspective on these events. God sees them on a deeper level, and if I could see them as God sees them I would interpret them different. But since I cannot see what God sees I will just trust that what God sees as better than what I see, and I will move along believing He will work it out for my good. Faith is an assumption that negative events can be interpreted to be positive if seen from the right perspective. If you can wait for that perspective to appear, you will see what God sees, and so see good where you thought there was only the bad.

     Joseph was just such a man of faith, but Jacob had an eye for the facts only. Just give me the facts was his theme. "Joseph is dead, Simeon is in jail in Egypt, and now you want to rip Benjamin from my protective care. It is obvious from the evidence that God has reneged on his promise to bless me and the whole world through me. I am cursed and not blest." This was the way he was interpreting the events of his life. He never was asking whether it could be the way God was working to accomplish his promise. You have heard the old saying, "I cried because I had no shoes till I saw a man who had no feet." In other words, "I saw life only from a self-centered perspective and felt cursed. But when I saw life from the perspective of those who would gladly trade places with me I felt blest." So whether a man with no shoes is cursed or blest all depends on the perspective.

      Is Jacob one of the most blest, or one of the most miserable of men? It all depends on how you see it. If you go by his point of view, he is a poor God-forsaken wretch watching his life disintegrate. But if you go by God's point of view, which we have recorded for us, he was heading for life in the best land where he would live in luxury, and have all of his family around him, and grow to be an old man whose family would bless the whole world.   Which point of view was true? Both of them were, for God's providence led to His plan being fulfilled to the letter just as Joseph dreamed. But the negative view that made Jacob miserable was also true, because he interpreted life that way, and had to suffer needless misery of heart and mind because he refused to believe God could have a different and better view of what was going on.

      Jacob saw his life falling apart when in reality God was bringing it all together. The sons saw God punishing them, when in reality God was blessing them more than they had ever been blest. They would argue that they were just looking at the facts, but that is not so. They were interpreting the facts, and they were interpreting them to mean what was bad when they could have interpreted them to be good had they had the faith. We do not realize it, but we are all interpreters of life. Everyday we say that something is good or bad, and seldom do we question our interpretation. We feel almost infallible about our interpretation of life's events.

     Joseph's brothers thought they were experts at interpreting events. They said their father's love for our younger brother is bad. It means he loves us less and therefore we should hate him. He is robbing us of our fair share of love, and so we have a right to rid ourselves of this robber. Masses of people are giving this same false interpretation to the events in their lives, and they are making themselves miserable. It is just not true that if you are loved less than someone else that you are of less value. Jacob favored Joseph, but he loved all of his boys and cared about them. He wanted the best for each of them. His love for Joseph was not a rejection of them.

      You cannot control how other people feel, but you can control how you interpret what they feel. You do not have to interpret the fact that your father loves your brother more than you to mean that he will not give you the love and support you need. I know parents who bend over backward to help an encourage children they do not favor. I see it in myself. I have poured out my energy to encourage and support people who are not my favored church members. They may even be fringe people who contribute nothing to the church, but if they have need, they get more time and energy than people who are pillars of the church.

      It is a paradox, but the fact is, people who are loved less can often be loved the most if that is their need. There is no hint that Jacob failed to meet the needs of any of his sons. Their hate for Joseph was based on their interpretation of what was, and not on what actually was. They never bothered to consider that the dream of Joseph, which had all of them bowing to him, could represent his being so blessed and exalted because they needed a loved one in high places for the salvation of them and their families. That was the proper interpretation of the dream, but they interpret it as delusions of grandeur by a bratty little brother and they hated him for it. They hated what was God's plan for their own salvation because they saw their interpretation as the only valid one.

      This whole story of Joseph and his family is shouting at us all-question your perspectives. Ask yourself if you are interpreting life's events from the point of view of a pessimist, or are you interpreting them in the light of the revelation that God works in all things for good with those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose. Jacob and his sons suffered a lot of misery in life because they did not have the faith to interpret life's events in the way Joseph did.

       Could you come out to your car in the morning and see a flat tire when you are running 10 minutes late already, and then give that event a positive interpretation? Many would say, "I must be a bad person for God to be punishing me like this. I haven't read my Bible for weeks, and now this is God's way of getting even." Jacob and the boys would vote for that interpretation. But Joseph would vote for another view. He would go for the interpretation that says, "I have not had a flat like this for many years. Thank God this happens so seldom, and the 20 minutes I lose this morning may just be a life saver, for now I will not be at that dangerous intersection at 7:30 like usual, and this could be God's way of pro-videntially protecting me from an awful accident. Praise God for ways He guides that I can't see."

      It is not the event, but the interpretation you put on the event that makes it good or bad. These 10 brothers found their money in their bags of grain and they had to give this event an interpretation. They chose to see it as a bad omen, and they made it a burden. I would love to get home from the grocery store and find all my money in the bag. I think such a gesture would pretty much win me over as a steady customer even if it was the most expensive store in town. I would probably shop more than ever and be delighted to fill up bags everyday. I just know that I would interpret free groceries as a blessing. But not these guys. We know that this was Joseph being a blessing to his family, but people who get good at it can turn every blessing into a burden.

      You know you are dealing with pros when they can turn a total refund of their grocery expenses into a fear that God is out to get them. You have to be really good at seeing the bad in order to see this. The amateur pessimist would have his guard down and would say, "Wow guys! Look at this! We got all our money back, and so we have all these supplies for nothing." He would be laughing and dancing for joy before his pessimism kicked in. But the pro is ready for these sort of surprises. He has already programmed his mind to recognize that what seems good never really is. It is just a trick to give you false hope.

      You don't get a blessing past the defenses of a pro just by giving their money back. They have been trained by the best, which was their father Jacob. If everything is against you, it makes interpreting life a whole lot simpler. You have already prejudged that everything is bad, even when it seems good. You cannot fail to be a consistent pessimist just because of a conspicuous blessing. This kind of mind set has done a lot of damage in the history of God's people. When the 12 spies went into the promise land they all saw the same facts. But ten of them interpreted them in a negative way. They came back reporting that it would be a mistake to try and take that land. It would be like grasshoppers trying to fight giants. The minority view of Joshua and Caleb was one of optimism, and God was pleased with that. But the pessimist were made to wander for 40 years in the wilderness until they were all dead.

      It was not the facts but the interpretation of them that made all the difference in the world. God's blessings are often like Joseph. They are disguised and dressed in the garb of a stranger. They look like bad news, but they are really good news. Don't be so quick to jump to the conclusion that what seems bad is really bad. It could turn out to be a blessing.

       Janet had gotten fired from a good job at a time when jobs were hard to find. She was very frustrated and began to doubt that God cared for her.   She kept telling her friend Cheryl that life is awful and everything is against me. Then she met Bill, and some months later they flew to California to meet his parents. When she called her mother and told her she was getting married she said she was so glad she lost her job, for her whole life was changed for the better. She could have saved herself a lot of grief had she been able to interpret the negative experience the way Joseph did, rather than the way his brothers did. Walking by faith means recognizing there is more than one perspective, and if you interpreting events from a negative perspective, you need to doubt your interpretation and consider a more positive possibility.

      The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, from their perspective it is sheer folly to associated with a man who was killed by capital punishment. It is a curse to hung on a tree. Just look at the Bible facts themselves and you will see that the cross is a stumbling block. Such is the interpretation of the blind. But for those who see by faith the cross is the measure of the so in God so loved the world. The cross is the picture of how much we are loved even as sinners, for it was while we were sinners that Christ died for us. Paul gloried in the cross, for that was the means by which God reconciled the world to Himself and made it possible for all to come into His family and be forever blest.

       Crucifixion was awful, and if you are going to go by what you see, the cross was a bad event. But if you see it from God's perspective, the cross is transformed from the gory to the glory; from the bad to the best, for faith does not just look at the facts, but at the interpretation of the facts. If you interpret the cross from God's perspective it becomes the source of our salvation, for there Christ paid the price to become the door of eternal life for all who trust in Him. As we meet around the Lord's table let its symbols remind you of Jesus and of the reality behind what looks like such a negative event. If you interpret it as God intends for you to interpret it it becomes a glorious event which leads to a glorious forever for those who put their trust in the Christ of the cross.

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