Victim or Overcomer?
Theme of the Week: Don't Waste Your Suffering
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
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Key Bible Verse: "God has made me fruitful in this land of my suffering" (Genesis 41:52). Bonus Reading: Genesis 37:5-10; 50:15-21
If Joseph were alive today, he could be a poster boy for victimization. He was abused by his family, who sold him to slavery in Egypt. He tried to be a good slave, but when he wouldn't sleep with his master's wife, she had him thrown into prison. He tried to be a helpful prisoner, but those who regained their freedom forgot about him. It was all so unjust. Yet Joseph never saw himself as a victim.
Victimization is quite in vogue in our society. We insist that we have been deeply hurt by our families, our supervisors, and our culture: "I deserve better than I have gotten." Maybe that's true. Yet it really doesn't matter what you deserve. What matters is how you respond to your hurt. You can settle into a deep anger that will suck away the rest of your life. Or you can choose to look for the ways in which God is molding your life even through injustice.
God cares a lot more about your character than your accomplishments. When he was young, Joseph had great dreams but little humility. After his release from jail, he was a different man. That's because he believed God could use even evil for good. That took a choice. The other choice—victimization—is a choice to waste your suffering.
—M. Craig Barnes in An Extravagant Mercy
My Response: Have I chosen to blame others for my hurts, or to benefit from them?
Thought to Apply: You have granted me many blessings; now let me also accept what is hard from your hand. —Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German pastor & theologian)
Adapted from An Extravagant Mercy (Servant, 2003) by permission.
Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Help me not to resist the trials You send my way, Lord, but submit to Your refining touch.
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