One thing I keep coming back to in Joseph’s story is how differently the same circumstances look depending upon where you are standing. His brothers see unexplained money, an Egyptian ruler asking uncomfortable questions, and Simeon being detained. From where they stand, everything looks suspicious and threatening. Yet behind the scenes, Joseph is already arranging provision, restoration, and eventually reunion. Their fear is responding to a story they do not yet have enough information to understand.

I think I do that more often than I care to admit. I receive three pieces of a thousand-piece puzzle from God and immediately decide I should be able to identify the entire picture. When I can’t, uncertainty starts filling in the blank spaces for me—and uncertainty rarely owns a cheerful box of crayons.

That is why Proverbs 3:5 speaks to me a little differently here: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Sometimes the problem isn’t that my understanding is wrong; it is simply incomplete. I am trying to reach a conclusion while God is still unfolding the story.

And Joseph’s twenty-two-year journey is such a powerful reminder that silence is not the same thing as inactivity. There are stretches of his story when, from a human perspective, absolutely nothing appears to be moving toward fulfillment. Yet God is positioning people, developing character, arranging circumstances, and preserving a family through events no one involved could possibly have connected at the time.

I suppose that makes me wonder how many things I have called a delay that heaven calls preparation. We usually recognize providence beautifully in reverse. Faith is trusting that the same God who makes sense of the road behind us already understands the road ahead.

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