Genesis 50

Choose your hard

You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. ~ Genesis 50:20

We are living in heavy times. Just this past week, our nation was shaken by tragedy and loss. When moments like these happen, it is easy to question why these kinds of devasting things happen and to wrestle with hurt, fear, or even anger. Yet the truth of God’s Word remains the same: what people intend for harm, God is still able to use for good.

Genesis 50 reveals this powerful truth through the life of Joseph. After years of betrayal, slavery, false accusations, and prison, Joseph stood before the very people who had wronged him. He could have chosen bitterness and revenge, but instead he chose forgiveness and trust in God’s purpose. Joseph had to choose his hard. Holding on to resentment and anger would have been hard because it would have left him without peace and in constant turmoil, leading him away from his true destination. Instead, he chose the hard path of faith and forgiveness. One road would have destroyed him, while the other brought healing and life. Joseph chose the hard that honored God, and because of it, he stepped into his destiny.

Here are some points to consider as you make your choices each day.

1. Every choice in life comes with challenges

The bottom line is that life is hard. It is not about choosing between easy and hard but choosing which hard you will live with. It is hard to carry bitterness, and it is hard to forgive. It is hard to live in fear, and sometimes it feels hard to trust God. The question is not whether life will be hard, but which hard will bring you closer to Him.
Joseph’s example: He could have lived in resentment toward his brothers, but instead he chose forgiveness and freedom.

2. God can turn the hard seasons to shape us if we let Him

The difficulties we face are never wasted. God uses challenges to strengthen us, deepen our character, and prepare us for what He has planned.
Joseph’s example: Prison and false accusations were not wasted years. They became the training ground that prepared him to lead a nation through famine.

3. Choosing God’s way leads to life and purpose

Not every path leads to life. Some choices may feel easier in the moment but produce hard and painful results later. When we choose God’s way of forgiveness, integrity, and trust, it may feel hard in the moment, but it always leads to blessing and purpose.  The truth is that when we surrender what we are feeling to the Lord and ask for His help to do the thing that honors Him most, we don’t have to do the hard thing by ourselves.  He shows up with His empowering grace to strengthen in the hard choices.
Joseph’s example: Because he chose the path of faith, he was in position to save his family and countless others. What others meant for evil, God used for good.

Today I want to encourage you to choose the hard that honors God. The way that seems easy or even popular leads to the hard road of regret and disappointment, but God’s way, though it seems difficult in the moment, leads to peace, freedom, and purpose. Joseph’s story shows us that even in times of betrayal, injustice, and tragedy, God is still working for good. Your obedience today is preparing you for something far greater than what you can see right now.

Today’s scripture reading: Genesis 50

1 Joseph threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him. 

2 Then Joseph told the physicians who served him to embalm his father’s body; so Jacob was embalmed. 

3 The embalming process took the usual forty days. And the Egyptians mourned his death for seventy days.

4 When the period of mourning was over, Joseph approached Pharaoh’s advisers and said, “Please do me this favor and speak to Pharaoh on my behalf. 

5 Tell him that my father made me swear an oath. He said to me, ‘Listen, I am about to die. Take my body back to the land of Canaan and bury me in the tomb I prepared for myself.’ So please allow me to go and bury my father. After his burial, I will return without delay.”

6 Pharaoh agreed to Joseph’s request. “Go and bury your father, as he made you promise,” he said. 

7 So Joseph went up to bury his father. He was accompanied by all of Pharaoh’s officials, all the senior members of Pharaoh’s household, and all the senior officers of Egypt. 

8 Joseph also took his entire household and his brothers and their households. But they left their little children and flocks and herds in the land of Goshen. 

9 A great number of chariots and charioteers accompanied Joseph.

10 When they arrived at the threshing floor of Atad, near the Jordan River, they held a very great and solemn memorial service, with a seven-day period of mourning for Joseph’s father. 

11 The local residents, the Canaanites, watched them mourning at the threshing floor of Atad. Then they renamed that place (which is near the Jordan) Abel-mizraim, for they said, “This is a place of deep mourning for these Egyptians.”

12 So Jacob’s sons did as he had commanded them. 

13 They carried his body to the land of Canaan and buried him in the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre. This is the cave that Abraham had bought as a permanent burial site from Ephron the Hittite.

14 After burying Jacob, Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers and all who had accompanied him to his father’s burial. 

15 But now that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers became fearful. “Now Joseph will show his anger and pay us back for all the wrong we did to him,” they said.

16 So they sent this message to Joseph: “Before your father died, he instructed us 

17 to say to you: ‘Please forgive your brothers for the great wrong they did to you—for their sin in treating you so cruelly.’ So we, the servants of the God of your father, beg you to forgive our sin.” When Joseph received the message, he broke down and wept. 

18 Then his brothers came and threw themselves down before Joseph. “Look, we are your slaves!” they said.

19 But Joseph replied, “Don’t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? 

20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. 

21 No, don’t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children.” So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them.

The Death of Joseph

22 So Joseph and his brothers and their families continued to live in Egypt. Joseph lived to the age of 110. 

23 He lived to see three generations of descendants of his son Ephraim, and he lived to see the birth of the children of Manasseh’s son Makir, whom he claimed as his own.

24 “Soon I will die,” Joseph told his brothers, “but God will surely come to help you and lead you out of this land of Egypt. He will bring you back to the land he solemnly promised to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”

25 Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear an oath, and he said, “When God comes to help you and lead you back, you must take my bones with you.” 

26 So Joseph died at the age of 110. The Egyptians embalmed him, and his body was placed in a coffin in Egypt.

Journal:

• Identify one area where you are tempted to take the “easy way” and instead choose God’s way, even if it feels harder.
• Speak forgiveness over someone who has hurt you, even if your emotions are not there yet.
• Write down one way you see God shaping you through a hard season right now.