Myron Maddsen, an outstanding author, speaker, and Christian leader
in New Orleans, tells of his experience of interpreting his Bible story book as a
young boy. He noted that all the characters had long flowing garments down
to their feet, and angels had similar garb. So he concluded that only women
were chosen by God, for he saw all of them wearing dresses. One day he got
up the nerve to ask his mother why there aren't any men in heaven? His
mother laughed heartily and asked where he got the idea that there was not
men there. He told her that his Bible story book had only pictures of women
and children. She explained to him that the men in the pictures were not
wearing dresses, but robes. This was the greatest revelation of his life up to
that point, for he was fearful that his only hope of getting to heaven was to die
young or have a sex change.
He thought he was just dealing with the facts right before his face, but he
was really dealing with his interpretation of what he saw, and that was far
different from the reality of what was being pictured. There is more to life
than what we see. A Mr. Goff was riding on a train and he saw a man off on
the side of the road fixing a flat in the rain. He said to himself, "Poor fellow,"
and he turned to the man next to him and said, "I wonder when they are going
to make a tire that won't go flat?" The man responded, "I hope never. I sell
tires, and the trouble is they make them so good now I can hardly make a
living."
Mr. Goff was suddenly made to realize that there is more than one
perspective on what seems obviously bad. I remember when I was made to see
this. I use to play tennis with a vet who went to my church in South Dakota.
Most of members were farmers, and so I was conscious of how important
healthy animals were to them. But the vet informed me that if animals never
got sick he would have no work and no income. He was a tither also, and so I
wondered what I should do as a pastor to encourage him. Should I pray that
the other member's animals get sick so he could increase his giving? I didn't
do that, but it made me realize that a sick cow which was a burden to one
member was a blessing to another member. I was able to see that the same
event could be seen as both good and bad because there was more than one
perspective.
Joseph had this ability to see life from more than one perspective. His
father Jacob, however, tended to see only his own self-centered perspective,
and that is why he is groaning that everything is against him. The ten
brothers are feeling the same, and they concluded that God was punishing
them even when He was really blessing them. If Joseph would have seen only
what was visible, imagine how depressing it would be. His brothers rejected
him, and they sold him into slavery. His master had him thrown in prison for
a false charge. Not everything was going his way at all. If facts are all you go
by, Joseph is the one who should be saying that everything is against him. But
we never hear that from Joseph, for he is able to see there more to life than
what meets the eye.
Faith is an assumption that negative events can be
interpreted to be positive if seen from the right perspective. If you can wait
for that perspective to appear, you will see what God sees, and so see good
where you thought there was only the bad.
Joseph was just such a man of faith, but Jacob had an eye for the facts only.
Just give me the facts was his theme. "Joseph is dead, Simeon is in jail in
Egypt, and now you want to rip Benjamin from my protective care. It is
obvious from the evidence that God has reneged on his promise to bless me
and the whole world through me. I am cursed and not blest." This was the
way he was interpreting the events of his life. He never was asking whether it
could be the way God was working to accomplish his promise. You have
heard the old saying, "I cried because I had no shoes till I saw a man who had
no feet." In other words, "I saw life only from a self-centered perspective and
felt cursed. But when I saw life from the perspective of those who would
gladly trade places with me I felt blest." So whether a man with no shoes is
cursed or blest all depends on the perspective.
Is Jacob one of the most blest, or one of the most miserable of men? It all
depends on how you see it. If you go by his point of view, he is a poor
God-forsaken wretch watching his life disintegrate. But if you go by God's
point of view, which we have recorded for us, he was heading for life in the
best land where he would live in luxury, and have all of his family around him,
and grow to be an old man whose family would bless the whole world. Which
point of view was true? Both of them were, for God's providence led to His
plan being fulfilled to the letter just as Joseph dreamed. But the negative view
that made Jacob miserable was also true, because he interpreted life that way,
and had to suffer needless misery of heart and mind because he refused to
believe God could have a different and better view of what was going on.
Jacob saw his life falling apart when in reality God was bringing it all
together. The sons saw God punishing them, when in reality God was blessing
them more than they had ever been blest. They would argue that they were
just looking at the facts, but that is not so. They were interpreting the facts,
and they were interpreting them to mean what was bad when they could have
interpreted them to be good had they had the faith. We do not realize it, but
we are all interpreters of life. Everyday we say that something is good or bad,
and seldom do we question our interpretation. We feel almost infallible about
our interpretation of life's events.
Joseph's brothers thought they were experts at interpreting events. They
said their father's love for our younger brother is bad. It means he loves us
less and therefore we should hate him. He is robbing us of our fair share of
love, and so we have a right to rid ourselves of this robber. Masses of people
are giving this same false interpretation to the events in their lives, and they
are making themselves miserable. It is just not true that if you are loved less
than someone else that you are of less value. Jacob favored Joseph, but he
loved all of his boys and cared about them. He wanted the best for each of
them. His love for Joseph was not a rejection of them.
You cannot control how other people feel, but you can control how you
interpret what they feel. You do not have to interpret the fact that your father
loves your brother more than you to mean that he will not give you the love
and support you need. I know parents who bend over backward to help an
encourage children they do not favor. I see it in myself. I have poured out my
energy to encourage and support people who are not my favored church
members. They may even be fringe people who contribute nothing to the
church, but if they have need, they get more time and energy than people who
are pillars of the church.
It is a paradox, but the fact is, people who are loved less can often be loved
the most if that is their need. There is no hint that Jacob failed to meet the
needs of any of his sons. Their hate for Joseph was based on their
interpretation of what was, and not on what actually was. They never
bothered to consider that the dream of Joseph, which had all of them bowing
to him, could represent his being so blessed and exalted because they needed a
loved one in high places for the salvation of them and their families. That was
the proper interpretation of the dream, but they interpret it as delusions of
grandeur by a bratty little brother and they hated him for it. They hated what
was God's plan for their own salvation because they saw their interpretation
as the only valid one.
This whole story of Joseph and his family is shouting at us all-question
your perspectives. Ask yourself if you are interpreting life's events from the
point of view of a pessimist, or are you interpreting them in the light of the
revelation that God works in all things for good with those who love Him and
who are called according to His purpose. Jacob and his sons suffered a lot of
misery in life because they did not have the faith to interpret life's events in the
way Joseph did.
Could you come out to your car in the morning and see a flat tire when
you are running 10 minutes late already, and then give that event a positive
interpretation? Many would say, "I must be a bad person for God to be
punishing me like this. I haven't read my Bible for weeks, and now this is
God's way of getting even." Jacob and the boys would vote for that
interpretation. But Joseph would vote for another view. He would go for the
interpretation that says, "I have not had a flat like this for many years. Thank
God this happens so seldom, and the 20 minutes I lose this morning may just
be a life saver, for now I will not be at that dangerous intersection at 7:30 like
usual, and this could be God's way of providentially protecting me from an
awful accident. Praise God for ways He guides that I can't see."
It is not the event, but the interpretation you put on the event that makes it
good or bad. These 10 brothers found their money in their bags of grain and
they had to give this event an interpretation. They chose to see it as a bad
omen, and they made it a burden. I would love to get home from the grocery
store and find all my money in the bag. I think such a gesture would pretty
much win me over as a steady customer even if it was the most expensive store
in town. I would probably shop more than ever and be delighted to fill up
bags everyday. I just know that I would interpret free groceries as a blessing.
But not these guys. We know that this was Joseph being a blessing to his
family, but people who get good at it can turn every blessing into a burden.
You know you are dealing with pros when they can turn a total refund of
their grocery expenses into a fear that God is out to get them. You have to be
really good at seeing the bad in order to see this. The amateur pessimist would
have his guard down and would say, "Wow guys! Look at this! We got all
our money back, and so we have all these supplies for nothing." He would be
laughing and dancing for joy before his pessimism kicked in. But the pro is
ready for these sort of surprises. He has already programmed his mind to
recognize that what seems good never really is. It is just a trick to give you
false hope.
You don't get a blessing past the defenses of a pro just by giving their
money back. They have been trained by the best, which was their father
Jacob. If everything is against you, it makes interpreting life a whole lot
simpler. You have already prejudged that everything is bad, even when it
seems good. You cannot fail to be a consistent pessimist just because of a
conspicuous blessing. This kind of mind set has done a lot of damage in the
history of God's people. When the 12 spies went into the promise land they all
saw the same facts. But ten of them interpreted them in a negative way. They
came back reporting that it would be a mistake to try and take that land. It
would be like grasshoppers trying to fight giants. The minority view of Joshua
and Caleb was one of optimism, and God was pleased with that. But the
pessimist were made to wander for 40 years in the wilderness until they were
all dead.
It was not the facts but the interpretation of them that made all the
difference in the world. God's blessings are often like Joseph. They are
disguised and dressed in the garb of a stranger. They look like bad news, but
they are really good news. Don't be so quick to jump to the conclusion that
what seems bad is really bad. It could turn out to be a blessing.
Janet had gotten fired from a good job at a time when jobs were hard to
find. She was very frustrated and began to doubt that God cared for her. She
kept telling her friend Cheryl that life is awful and everything is against me.
Then she met Bill, and some months later they flew to California to meet his
parents. When she called her mother and told her she was getting married she
said she was so glad she lost her job, for her whole life was changed for the
better. She could have saved herself a lot of grief had she been able to
interpret the negative experience the way Joseph did, rather than the way his
brothers did. Walking by faith means recognizing there is more than one
perspective, and if you interpreting events from a negative perspective, you
need to doubt your interpretation and consider a more positive possibility.
The preaching of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, from
their perspective it is sheer folly to associated with a man who was killed by
capital punishment. It is a curse to hung on a tree. Just look at the Bible facts
themselves and you will see that the cross is a stumbling block. Such is the
interpretation of the blind. But for those who see by faith the cross is the
measure of the so in God so loved the world. The cross is the picture of how
much we are loved even as sinners, for it was while we were sinners that
Christ died for us. Paul gloried in the cross, for that was the means by which
God reconciled the world to Himself and made it possible for all to come into
His family and be forever blest.
Crucifixion was awful, and if you are going to go by what you see, the
cross was a bad event. But if you see it from God's perspective, the cross is
transformed from the gory to the glory; from the bad to the best, for faith
does not just look at the facts, but at the interpretation of the facts. If you
interpret the cross from God's perspective it becomes the source of our
salvation, for there Christ paid the price to become the door of eternal life for
all who trust in Him. As we meet around the Lord's table let its symbols
remind you of Jesus and of the reality behind what looks like such a negative
event. If you interpret it as God intends for you to interpret it it becomes a
glorious event which leads to a glorious forever for those who put their trust in
the Christ of the cross.
