Reflection: It Was Good for Me

Our suffering is part of a bigger picture we can’t see from the ground. As the writer of Psalm 105 recounts God’s dealing with Israel, the emphasis is on the fact of God working out his word over hundreds and thousands of years. When he comes to the story of Joseph, the writer says, “When he summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them.” What an astonishing realization that must have been when, after years of waiting and wondering, after all the injustice he had suffered, Joseph was able to say to his brothers, “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life . . . So it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Gen. 45:5, 8).