Gen. 50:20 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result…”
I met someone who was telling me some sad things about their life. What they were struggling with is that because of the behavior of someone else their life has been altered and affected negatively. The result was they were walking through a lot of grief and regret. It wasn’t a regret that they had done something wrong, but the regret that this person had mistreated them, and it seemed to alter the course of their life, which they perceived to be a disastrous thing. I found myself telling this person the story of Joseph from the Old Testament and how he had been mistreated by his brothers, Potiphar, and Potiphar’s wife.
If you remember the story, God placed some big dreams into Joseph’s heart concerning his destiny. Because of jealousy, his brothers threw him into a pit and then sold him into slavery in Egypt. He was only 17 years old at the time. He became the slave of a man named Potiphar who was the captain of Pharaoh’s guards. Joseph was very faithful to him and caused everything that he had to prosper. Joseph worked for him for 11 years, but everything was ruined when Potiphar’s wife tried to molest him. When Joseph refused her, she told her husband that Joseph had tried to rape her and Potiphar believed her. As a result of her behavior and Potiphar’s behavior, Joseph was cast into prison for two years. Of course, at the end of the two years, as the result of God’s supernatural intervention, Joseph was released from prison and Pharaoh made him the Vice President and General Manager of all of Egypt. In the end, all of Joseph’s dreams that God had placed in his heart concerning his destiny were fulfilled.
The bottom line is that what seems to be setbacks in our eyes because of the behavior of other people, actually are used by God to position us to fulfill our destiny. Everything that happened to Joseph at the hands of others God used to propel him forward, so that every dream God had placed in his heart would be for fulfilled. We can by faith see Him at work, causing all things to work together for the good, even though all that are natural eyes see seems to be setbacks and destruction.