A HIGHER HOPE – MAY 2024
DIVINE REVERSAL
How does trust work? What does trust really mean?
Does it mean naïve simple blind trust? Is it a feeling that comes over us and we simply trust? What does it mean to really trust someone without having to worry? Does it mean we have peace without worry when we trust? Is it really that simple?
When Joseph was sold off as a slave by his brothers, what do you suppose he was thinking? “OK, I’ve had dreams about being very important and being in charge of many. I’m wearing an ornate robe but here I am, betrayed by my brothers, sold into slavery, being carried away from my homeland and all that I know.”
As a boy, Joseph was taught about God and had even had a dream from God – he thought he was destined for high places. In his early years, he trusted God based on his knowledge of God as well as his circumstances at the time.
How, then, did he face all those hardships? The betrayal by his brothers, years of slavery, rising to a powerful position then accused and thrown into prison, betrayed in prison, forgotten and then tested – from all these circumstances, Joseph could have easily decided that God was not to be trusted.
Yet, when Joseph’s brothers appeared in front of him years later, Joseph showed that he had grown in grace and conquered these adversities through his trust in God. In a divine reversal, he declared to his brothers, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”
Joseph chose to trust God in the midst of circumstances that didn’t make sense, didn’t fit the ‘picture’ he had of God when he was young. In spite of this, he chose to trust God’s sovereignty over his life.
What does trust really mean? Trusting is choosing to believe and hope in our sovereign God and Father rather than circumstances. Peace and hope are the result.
Many of our students are living in circumstances which are very difficult – difficult to live in and difficult to understand. God has given them into our school community and family for a reason. May we help them by continually choosing to see our circumstances through the lens of God’s sovereignty, even when things happen that cannot be understood.
As David aptly expressed in Psalm 23:4 & 1 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. The Lord is my Shepherd.”
And in Psalm 46:1 & 10 “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea… Be still and know that I am God.”
This term, we pray that through our trust and hope in God, our students and school communities will also be encouraged in their hope and trust in God.