In many corporate mergers, the top executives end up with a golden parachute; the rest of the employees plummet to earth. Raw deals are often part of big deals. The Old Testament character Joseph had a string of raw deals. His brothers sold him like a slave to Egypt, yet Joseph didn’t retaliate when he came into power.
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?”
So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept.
His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.
But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. Genesis 50:15-21
Character Check How is God working out his plans for me through my disappointments?
In Business Terms Harlan Sanders’ career amounted to a string of failures.
He failed as a blacksmith. He got fired as a railroad locomotive fireman with the Southern Railroad. He tried selling insurance, studying law, selling tires, running a filling station, and even running a ferryboat. Nothing worked out. Later in life, he became chief cook and bottlewasher at a restaurant.
When Sanders got his first Social Security check-only $105-he became angry But Sanders took that first check and started a business: Kentucky Fried Chicken. The rest, as they say, is history
Sometimes God prepares us for success through the hard knocks of life. We may dislike the process, but God builds character through disappointments and failures. So it was with Joseph. Not until later in life could he look back and admit that God intended the evil betrayal by his brothers, which landed him in Egypt, for good. Even while in Egypt, Joseph got a raw deal-he was falsely accused of trying to seduce the wife of a leading Egyptian government official! God worked through Joseph’s circumstances later in life to make him the second in command in Egypt.
What God did for Joseph, God will do for us. The God of the universe is actively at work in our disappointments. He intends them for our good.
—Steven D. Mathewson
Something to Think About Disappointment is often the salt of life. – Theodore Parker
90 Days in the Word for Business Professionals. Copyright 1999 © Broadman & Holman Publishers. Used by permission.
