You'll Get Through This Part 3

"Yes."

" . . . how'd you like your heart attack?"5 Rather than say, "G.o.d, why?" ask, "G.o.d, what?" What can I learn from this experience? "Remember today what you have learned about the LORD through your experiences with him" (Deut. 11:2 TEV). Rather than ask G.o.d to change your circ.u.mstances, ask him to use your circ.u.mstances to change you. Life is a required course. Might as well do your best to pa.s.s it.

G.o.d is at work in each of us whether we know it or not, whether we want it or not. "He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way" (Lam. 3:33 MSG). He does not relish our sufferings, but he delights in our development. "G.o.d began doing a good work in you, and I am sure he will continue it until it is finished when Jesus Christ comes again" (Phil. 1:6 NCV). He will not fail. He cannot fail. He will "work in us what is pleasing to him" (Heb. 13:21 NIV). Every challenge, large or small, can equip you for a future opportunity.

Howard Rutledge came to appreciate his time as a POW in Vietnam. He wrote: During those long periods of enforced reflection, it became so much easier to separate the important from the trivial, the worth-while from the waste . . .

My hunger for spiritual food soon outdid my hunger for a steak . . . I wanted to know about the part of me that will never die . . . I wanted to talk about G.o.d and Christ and the church . . . It took prison to show me how empty life is without G.o.d . . .

On August 31, after twenty-eight days of torture, I could remember I had children but not how many. I said Phyllis's name over and over again so I would not forget. I prayed for strength. It was on that twenty-eighth night I made G.o.d a promise. If I survived this ordeal, the first Sunday back in freedom I would take Phyllis and my family to their church and . . . confess my faith in Christ and join the church. This wasn't a deal with G.o.d to get me through that last miserable night. It was a promise made after months of thought. It took prison and hours of painful reflection to realize how much I needed G.o.d and the community of believers. After I made G.o.d that promise, again I prayed for strength to make it through the night.

When the morning dawned through the crack in the bottom of that solid prison door, I thanked G.o.d for His mercy.6 Don't see your struggle as an interruption to life but as preparation for life. No one said the road would be easy or painless. But G.o.d will use this mess for something good. "This trouble you're in isn't punishment; it's training, the normal experience of children . . . G.o.d is doing what is best for us, training us to live G.o.d's holy best" (Heb. 12:8, 10 MSG).

CHAPTER 6.

Wait While

G.o.d Works

So here I sit in the waiting room. The receptionist took my name, recorded my insurance data, and gestured to a chair. "Please have a seat. We will call you when the doctor is ready." I look around. A mother holds a sleeping baby. A fellow dressed in a suit thumbs through Time magazine. A woman with a newspaper looks at her watch, sighs, and continues the task of the hour: waiting.

The waiting room. Not the examination room. That's down the hall. Not the consultation room. That's on the other side of the wall. Not the treatment room. Exams, consultations, and treatments all come later.

The task at hand is the name of the room: the waiting room. We in the waiting room understand our a.s.signment: to wait. We don't treat each other. I don't ask the nurse for a stethoscope or blood pressure cuff. I don't pull up a chair next to the woman with the newspaper and say, "Tell me what prescriptions you are taking." That's the job of the nurse. My job is to wait. So I do.

Can't say that I like it. Time moves like an Alaskan glacier. The clock ticks every five minutes, not every second. Someone pressed the pause b.u.t.ton. Life in slo-mo. We don't like to wait. We are the giddyup generation. We weave through traffic, looking for the faster lane. We frown at the person who takes eleven items into the ten-item express checkout. We drum our fingers while the song downloads or the microwave heats our coffee. "Come on, come on." We want six-pack abs in ten minutes and minute rice in thirty seconds. We don't like to wait. Not on the doctor, the traffic, or the pizza.

Not on G.o.d?

Take a moment and look around you. Do you realize where we sit? This planet is G.o.d's waiting room.

The young couple in the corner? Waiting to get pregnant. The fellow with the briefcase? He has resumes all over the country, waiting on work. The elderly woman with the cane? A widow. Been waiting a year for one tearless day. Waiting. Waiting on G.o.d to give, help, heal. Waiting on G.o.d to come. We indwell the land betwixt prayer offered and prayer answered. The land of waiting.

If anyone knew the furniture of G.o.d's waiting room, Joseph did. One problem with reading his story is its brevity. We can read the Genesis account from start to finish in less than an hour, which gives the impression that all these challenges took place before breakfast one morning. We'd be wiser to pace our reading over a couple of decades.

Take chapter 37 into a dry cistern, and sit there for a couple of hours while the sun beats down. Recite the first verse of chapter 39 over and over for a couple of months: "Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt." Joseph needed at least this much time to walk the 750 miles from Dothan to Thebes.

Then there was the day or days or weeks on the auction block. Add to that probably a decade in Potiphar's house, supervising the servants, doing his master's bidding, learning Egyptian. Ticktock. Ticktock. Ticktock. Time moves slowly in a foreign land.

And time stands still in a prison.

Joseph had asked the butler to put in a good word for him. "Remember me when it is well with you, and please show kindness to me; make mention of me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this house . . . I have done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon" (Gen. 40:1415).

We can almost hear the butler reply, "Certainly, I will mention you to Pharaoh. First chance I get. You'll be hearing from me." Joseph hurried back to his cell and collected his belongings. He wanted to be ready when the call came. A day pa.s.sed. Then two. Then a week . . . a month. Six months. No word. As it turned out, "Pharaoh's cupbearer . . . promptly forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought" (v. 23 NLT).

On the page of your Bible, the uninked s.p.a.ce between that verse and the next is scarcely wider than a hair ribbon. It takes your eyes only a split second to see it. Yet it took Joseph two years to experience it. Chapter 41 starts like this: "Two years pa.s.sed and Pharaoh had a dream" (v. 1 MSG).

Two years! Twenty-four months of silence. One hundred and four weeks of waiting. Seven hundred and thirty days of wondering. Two thousand one hundred and ninety meals alone. Seventeen thousand five hundred and twenty hours of listening for G.o.d yet hearing nothing but silence.

Plenty of time to grow bitter, cynical, angry. Folks have given up on G.o.d for lesser reasons in shorter times.

Not Joseph. On a day that began like any other, he heard a stir-ring at the dungeon entrance. Loud, impatient voices demanded, "We are here for the Hebrew! Pharaoh wants the Hebrew!" Joseph looked up from his corner to see the prison master, white-faced and stammering. "Get up! Hurry, get up!" Two guards from the court were on his heels. Joseph remembered them from his days in Potiphar's service. They took him by the elbows and marched him out of the hole. He squinted at the brilliant sunlight. They walked him across a courtyard into a room. Attendants flocked around him. They removed his soiled clothing, washed his body, and shaved his beard. They dressed him in a white robe and new sandals. The guards reappeared and walked him into the throne room.

And so it was that Joseph and Pharaoh looked into each other's eyes for the first time.

The king hadn't slept well the night before. Dreams troubled his rest. He heard of Joseph's skill. "They say you can interpret dreams. My counselors are mute as stones. Can you help me?"

Joseph's last two encounters hadn't ended so well. Mrs. Potiphar lied about him. The butler forgot about him. In both cases Joseph had mentioned the name of G.o.d. Perhaps he should hedge his bets and keep his faith under wraps.

He didn't. "Not I, but G.o.d. G.o.d will set Pharaoh's mind at ease" (v. 16 MSG).

Joseph emerged from his prison cell bragging on G.o.d. Jail time didn't devastate his faith; it deepened it.

And you? You aren't in prison, but you may be infertile or inactive or in limbo or in between jobs or in search of health, help, a house, or a spouse. Are you in G.o.d's waiting room? If so, here is what you need to know: while you wait, G.o.d works.

"My Father is always at his work," Jesus said (John 5:17 NIV). G.o.d never twiddles his thumbs. He never stops. He takes no vacations. He rested on the seventh day of creation but got back to work on the eighth and hasn't stopped since. Just because you are idle, don't a.s.sume G.o.d is.

Joseph's story appeared to stall out in chapter 40. Our hero was in shackles. The train was off the tracks. History was in a holding pattern. But while Joseph was waiting, G.o.d was working. He a.s.sembled the characters. G.o.d placed the butler in Joseph's care. He stirred the sleep of the king with odd dreams. He confused Pharaoh's counselors. And at just the right time, G.o.d called Joseph to duty.

He's working for you as well. "Be still, and know that I am G.o.d"1 reads the sign on G.o.d's waiting room wall. You can be glad because G.o.d is good. You can be still because he is active. You can rest because he is busy.

Remember G.o.d's word through Moses to the Israelites? "Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD . . . The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace" (Ex. 14:1314). The Israelites saw the Red Sea ahead of them and heard the Egyptian soldiers thundering after them. Death on both sides. Stand still? Are you kidding? But what the former slaves couldn't see was the hand of G.o.d at the bottom of the water, creating a path, and his breath from heaven, separating the waters. G.o.d was working for them.

G.o.d worked for Mary, the mother of Jesus. The angel told her that she would become pregnant. The announcement stirred a torrent of questions in her heart. How would she become pregnant? What would people think? What would Joseph say? Yet G.o.d was working for her. He sent a message to Joseph, her fiance. G.o.d prompted Caesar to declare a census. G.o.d led the family to Bethlehem. "G.o.d is always at work for the good of everyone who loves him" (Rom. 8:28 CEV).

To wait, biblically speaking, is not to a.s.sume the worst, worry, fret, make demands, or take control. Nor is waiting inactivity. Waiting is a sustained effort to stay focused on G.o.d through prayer and belief. To wait is to "rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for Him; . . . not fret" (Ps. 37:7).

Nehemiah shows us how to do this. His book is a memoir of his efforts to reconstruct the walls of Jerusalem. His story starts with a date. "It happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, that Hanani . . . came with certain men from Judah" (Neh. 1:12 ESV). They brought bad news. Hostile forces had flattened the walls that had once guarded the city. Even the gates had been burned. The few remaining Jews were in "great trouble and shame" (v. 3 ESV).

Nehemiah responded with prayer. "O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant . . . and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man" (v. 11 ESV).

"This man" was King Artaxerxes, the monarch of Persia. Nehemiah was his personal cupbearer, on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Nehemiah could not leave his post and go to Jerusalem. Even if he could, he had no resources with which to rebuild the walls. So he resolved to wait on the Lord in prayer.

The first verse of the second chapter reveals the length of his wait. "And it came to pa.s.s in the month of Nisan" that Nehemiah was appointed to a spot on the king's Jerusalem Commission. How far apart were the dates? Four months. Nehemiah's request, remember, was immediate: "Give your servant success today" (NIV). G.o.d answered the request four months (!) after Nehemiah made it.

Waiting is easier read than done. It doesn't come easily for me. I've been in a hurry my whole life. Hurrying to school, hurrying to finish homework. Pedal faster, drive quicker. I used to put my wrist-watch face on the inside of my arm so I wouldn't lose the millisecond it took to turn my wrist. What insanity! I wonder if I could have obeyed G.o.d's ancient command to keep the Sabbath holy. To slow life to a crawl for twenty-four hours. The Sabbath was created for frantic souls like me, people who need this weekly reminder: the world will not stop if you do!

And what of this command: "Three times a year all your men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD, the G.o.d of Israel. I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your territory, and no one will covet your land when you go up three times each year to appear before the LORD your G.o.d" (Ex. 34:2324 NIV)? G.o.d instructed the promised land settlers to stop their work three times a year and gather for worship. All commerce, education, government, and industry came to a halt while the people a.s.sembled. Can you imagine this happening today? Our country would be utterly defenseless.

Yet G.o.d promised to protect the territory. No one would encroach upon the Israelites. What's more, they wouldn't even desire to do so. "No one will covet your land." G.o.d used the pilgrimage to teach this principle: if you will wait in worship, I will work for you.

Daniel did this. In one of the most dramatic examples of waiting in the Bible, this Old Testament prophet kept his mind on G.o.d for an extended period. His people had been oppressed for almost seventy years. Daniel entered into a time of prayer on their behalf. For twenty-one days he abstained from pleasant food, meat, and wine. He labored in prayer. He persisted, pleaded, and agonized.

No response.

Then on the twenty-second day a breakthrough. An angel of G.o.d appeared. He revealed to Daniel the reason for the long delay. Daniel's prayer was heard on the first day it was offered. The angel was dispatched with a response. "That very day I was sent here to meet you. But for twenty-one days the mighty Evil Spirit who overrules the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the top officers of the heavenly army, came to help me, so that I was able to break through these spirit rulers of Persia" (Dan. 10:1213 TLB).

From an earthly perspective nothing was happening. Daniel's prayers were falling like pebbles on hard ground. But from a heavenly perspective a battle was raging in the heavens. Two angels were engaged in fierce combat for three weeks. While Daniel was waiting, G.o.d was working.

What if Daniel had given up? Lost faith? Walked away from G.o.d?

Better questions: What if you give up? Lose faith? Walk away?

Don't. For heaven's sake, don't. All of heaven is warring on your behalf. Above and around you at this very instant, G.o.d's messengers are at work.

Keep waiting.

Those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. (Isa. 40:31) Fresh strength. Renewed vigor. Legs that don't grow weary. Delight yourself in G.o.d, and he will bring rest to your soul.

You'll get through this waiting room season just fine. Pay careful note, and you will detect the most wonderful surprise. The doctor will step out of his office and take the seat next to yours. "Just thought I'd keep you company while you are waiting." Not every physician will do that, but yours will. After all, he is the Great Physician.

CHAPTER 7.

More

Bounce Back

Than Bozo

Don't hold me to the precise details of this childhood memory. I can't recall the name of the kid who had the party. Nor do I know my exact age, though judging from the neighborhood in which we were living, I must have been about eight years old. I don't remember the games we played or the names of the other guests. But I do remember the bounce-back clown.

He was pear-shaped, narrower at the top than the bottom. Inflated and Bozo-like. He was as tall as I was. All his facial features were painted on him. Ears didn't protrude. Nose didn't stick out. Even his arms lay flat. He didn't make music at the touch of a b.u.t.ton or recite lines at the pull of a string. He didn't do anything except this: bounce back.

Knock him down; he popped right up. Clobber him with a bat, pop him in the nose, or give him a swift kick to the side, and he would fall down-but not for long.

We did our best to level the clown. One punch after the other, each more vicious than the prior hit. None of us succeeded. Bozo had more comeback than the '69 Mets. He wasn't strong; he was full of air. He couldn't duck or defend himself. He didn't charm us with good looks or silence attackers with quick wit. He was a clown, for goodness' sake. Red lips and yellow hair. Yet there was something about him, or within him, that kept him on his feet.

We'd do well to learn his secret. Life comes at us with a fury of flying fists-right hook of rejection, sucker punch of loss. Enemies. .h.i.t below the belt. Calamities cause us to stagger. It's a slugfest out there.

Some people once knocked down never get up. They stay on the mat-beaten, bitter, broken. Out for the count. Others, however, have more bounce back than Bozo.

Joseph did. The guy was a walking pinata. The angry jealousy of his brothers that sold him into slavery, the below-the-belt deceit by Potiphar's wife that landed him in prison, the butler's broken promise that kept him in prison. Joseph staggered but recovered. (Cue Rocky music.) By G.o.d's strength, he pulled himself to his feet and stood, stronger than ever, in Pharaoh's court.

Pharaoh was the unrivaled ruler of the land. He was his own cabinet and congress. He spoke the word, and it was done. He issued a command, and it was law. He entered a room, and he was worshiped. Yet on this particular day Pharaoh didn't feel worshipworthy.

Let's imagine the prototypical Pharaoh: bare chested and rock jawed, saggy in the pecs, but solid for a middle-aged monarch. He wears a cloth on his shoulders and on his head a leather cone encircled by a rearing cobra. His beard is false, and his eye makeup is almond shaped. He holds a staff in one hand and rests his chin in the other. Slaves fan the air about him. A bowl of figs and nuts sits within arm's reach on a table. But he isn't hungry. He just frowns. His attendants speak in anxious, subdued voices. When Pharaoh isn't happy, no one is happy.

Dreams kept him up half the night. In dream number one, cows grazed on the riverbank. Seven were fine and fat, prime candidates for a Chick-fil-A commercial. But while the healthy bovines weren't looking, seven skinny cows sneaked up from behind and devoured them. Pharaoh sat up in bed and broke out in a sweat.

After a few minutes he dismissed the dream and fell back asleep. But dream number two was just as bothersome. A stalk of grain with seven healthy heads was consumed by a stalk of grain with seven withered heads. Two dreams with the same pattern: the seven bad devoured the seven good.

Pharaoh woke up distracted and befuddled. He a.s.sembled his council and demanded an interpretation. Cows consuming cows, stalks gobbling stalks. Did the dreams mean anything? His council had no response, had not a clue. His butler then remembered Joseph from their days together in prison. So the butler told Pharaoh about the Hebrew's skill at dream interpretation. The king snapped his finger, and a flourish of activity ensued. Joseph was cleaned up and called in. In a moment of high drama, Jacob's favored son was escorted into Pharaoh's throne room.

Oh, the contrast. Pharaoh, the king. Joseph, the ex-shepherd. Pharaoh, urban. Joseph, rural. Pharaoh from the palace. Joseph from the prison. Pharaoh wore gold chains. Joseph wore bruises from shackles. Pharaoh had his armies and pyramids. Joseph had a borrowed robe and a foreign accent.

The prisoner, however, was unfazed. He heard the dreams and went straight to work. No need to consult advisers or tea leaves. This was simple stuff, like basic multiplication for a Harvard math professor. "Expect seven years of plenty and seven years of famine." No one, including Pharaoh, knew how to respond. Famine was a foul word in the Egyptian dictionary. The nation didn't manufacture Chevys or export T-shirts. Their civilization was built on farms. Crops made Egypt the jewel of the Nile. Agriculture made Pharaoh the most powerful man in the world. A monthlong drought would hurt the economy. A yearlong famine would weaken the throne of Pharaoh, who owned the fields around the Nile. A seven-year famine would turn the Nile into a creek and the crops to sticks. A famine to Pharaoh was the equivalent of electric cars to the sheiks. Apocalypse!

The silence in the throne room was so thick you could hear a cough drop. Joseph took advantage of the pause in conversation to offer a solution. "Create a department of agriculture, and commission a smart person to gather grain in the good years and to distribute it during the lean years."

Officials gulped at Joseph's chutzpah. It was one thing to give bad news to Pharaoh, another to offer unsolicited advice. Yet the guy hadn't shown a hint of fear since he entered the palace. He paid no homage to the king. He didn't offer accolades to the magicians. He didn't kiss rings or polish apples. Lesser men would have cowered. Joseph didn't blink.

Again the contrast. The most powerful person in the room, Pharaoh (ruler of the Nile, deity of the heavens, Grand Pooh-Bah of the pyramid people), was in dire need of a scotch. The lowest person in the pecking order, Joseph (ex-slave, convict, accused s.e.x offender), was cooler than the other side of the pillow.

What made the difference?

Ballast. Bozo had it. The clown at the birthday party, I came to learn, was braced by a lead weight. A three-pound plate hidden at his base served as a counterbalance against the punches. Joseph, as it turns out, had a similar anchor. Not a piece of iron but a deep-seated, stabilizing belief in G.o.d's sovereignty.

We sense it in his first sentence: "It is not in me; G.o.d will give Pharaoh . . ." (Gen. 41:16). The second time Joseph spoke, he explained, "G.o.d has shown Pharaoh what He is about to do" (v. 28). Joseph proceeded to interpret the dreams and then tell Pharaoh that the dreams were "established by G.o.d, and G.o.d will shortly bring it to pa.s.s" (v. 32).

Four times in three verses Joseph made reference to G.o.d! "G.o.d . . . G.o.d . . . G.o.d . . . G.o.d."

Haven't we seen this before? When Potiphar's wife attempted to seduce him, Joseph refused, saying, "How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against G.o.d?" (Gen. 39:9 NIV). When fellow prisoners asked for an interpretation of their dreams, Joseph said, "Do not interpretations belong to G.o.d?" (40:8). He locked the magnet of his compa.s.s on a divine polestar. He lived with the awareness that G.o.d was active, able, and up to something significant.

And Joseph was correct. Pharaoh commanded a stunning turnaround: "Can we find such a one as this, a man in whom is the Spirit of G.o.d?" (41:38). He turned the kingdom over to Joseph. By the end of the day, the boy from Canaan was riding in a royal chariot, second only to Pharaoh in authority. What an unexpected rebound.

In the chaos called "Joseph's life," I count one broken promise, at least two betrayals, several bursts of hatred, two abductions, more than one attempted seduction, ten jealous brothers, and one case of poor parenting. Abuse. Unjust imprisonment. Twenty-four months of prison food. Mix it all together and let it sit for thirteen years, and what do you get? The grandest bounce back in the Bible! Jacob's forgotten boy became the second most powerful man in the world's most powerful country. The path to the palace wasn't quick, and it wasn't painless, but wouldn't you say that G.o.d took this mess and made it into something good?