The “Texodus” Begins
How do you deal with sudden and unexpected changes? If you didn’t know before 2020, you probably have begun to discover the answer to that question. For us, in addition to all of the trials and challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, another unexpected change brought uncertainty and loss into our lives.
Five weeks ago, life as we knew it was no longer ours to hold. After fifteen years of fruitful and joyous labor, our work came to an unexpected end. Circumstances served as God’s signposts to us that a quick relocation would be best for us and others. We found a couple we trusted to house sit until we had some idea of long-term next steps, packed what belongings we could into our two cars, and I drove them both (in two separate, one way drives) from our home in the midwest to the suburbs of Dallas–specifically the rather quaintly named community of Flower Mound. Our current residence in the great state of Texas brings me close to quite a few family members, but far from the familiar life we’ve led. We don’t know if it is a temporary stop or a more permanent one. That’s why I am calling it our “Texodus”–we have crossed the River (The Ohio, not the Nile, and on a bridge, not through the water), and are sojourning in a new place for what may be a short or long time (depending on learning God’s lessons and following his lead). Texans are convinced this is the Promised Land, but we will have to see.
The details of why this happened are not important–frankly, each of us have gone through circumstances that we couldn’t have predicted and that led to difficulties and uncertainties we were not prepared to face. At least we didn’t think we were.
It isn’t what happens to us that prompts the greatest and most profitable lesson-learning. It is those lessons we draw out as we go through our hard times that matter; lessons about ourselves, our God, and our faith in his purposes are what will have any lasting value. But we have to be patient and realize that those lessons take time to learn, and we can’t skip to the final chapter without making our way through the chapters of lessons of the book of suffering. I can’t even tell you what all those lessons will be for me yet. I’m still reading the book.
Sometimes I hear people glibly point to the end of Genesis when bad things have happened to others, and remind them that Joseph understood God’s sovereignty, so we should, too. Joseph’s ability to tell his brothers, “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good” when commenting on their selling him to the Midianite traders is instructional on two levels. First, it shows that a faithful follower of the Lord can come to a clear understanding that God’s good purposes will prevail. And second, it demonstrates to us that his thinking about the matter–which was great–had taken time to develop.
About ten years earlier, when he had interpreted the butler’s dream, Joseph pled with that official to remember him and get him out of where he was. You can hear the pathos of his request–years in prison had taken their toll–even when you have the run of the place, it’s still a prison. It didn’t happen–the butler forgot him until necessity made him remember much later.
You don’t sense that Joseph always saw prison as the best place for him to be–even though God put him there. We ought not assume that as the Midianites carried him off to Egypt, or Potiphar had him led away to prison after being falsely accused, that Joseph was nodding knowingly at the realization that this would one day put him in the prime minister’s seat. It is the process of incredulity, shock, dismay, grief, sadness, anger, disappointment, and some level of despair (David and other psalmists capture that well) that Joseph went through–all in faith–that eventually brought him to understand and accept, forgive and embrace, and then to assure those who had hurt him.
The theme of the last series of messages I preached from the Book of Daniel reminded us that “God is in control of who is in control.” That isn’t a platitude–it certainly wasn’t for teenage Daniel who was kidnapped, likely castrated, and forced to serve in the court of the king who destroyed his nation. Instead, Daniel lived his entire life gaining a deeper and deeper understanding that God’s sovereign purposes always triumph–just as God’s people would be finally delivered and his kingdom would triumph over the greatest empires of the nations.
Are you dealing with your own disappointments, hurts, or losses right now? Has quarantine, or fear of the virus, or having friends test positive, or loss of a job, or loss of a relationship, or extended loneliness taken the kind of toll that makes recovery hard to envision? Few of us escape these kinds of experiences in life, and most of us carry some of them that others don’t see. Only at times are our sufferings visible for all to observe. In our hurts, we always know we can bring them to the Lord, and know that he cares. But sometimes we can’t just do that once and be done. Sometimes the hurts and losses are so raw and real that they come to us like waves of the ocean–never stopping, and sometimes powerfully sweeping us off our feet.
Don’t give up. Don’t stop claiming God’s promises to be there and to care. Don’t turn inward and nurse offenses and grudges. Don’t believe the lie that no one is suffering like you are. And when you do get angry or sad or the frustration boils over, don’t think that God somehow stops loving and caring for you–or that his disappointment in your response governs what you’ll receive from him. Nothing could be further from the truth. He has loved you with an everlasting love that doesn’t diminish when you are even more undeserving than you thought you were. Jesus died for you in the mess you find yourself in, right now.
Yesterday I heard a great sermon on Psalm 23. (the link should take you to it if you like). In it I was reminded that this very familiar and personal psalm of David speaks to God’s generous provision even in the midst of deep difficulty. Can we trust him in our times of suffering, uncertainty, pain, or loss? The answer is always “yes.” What a comfort that is for us all!