Plan B: Good News ... Bad News

Gallery Owner: I have some good news and some bad news.

Artist: What's the good news?

Gallery Owner: The good news is that a man came in here today asking if the price of your paintings 

                          would go up after you die.  When I told him they would he bought every one of your 

                           paintings.

Artist: That's great!  What's the bad news?

Gallery Owner:  The bad news is that man was your doctor!

In these type of jokes there is a common thread that in the events of life there is an upside and a downside. I can’t help but think of the great quote attributed to the late Lawrence Welk - There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them. We each can relate to his thought. We have all experienced the highs and lows of life.  We each have been on the road of life – happy, content, joyful – only to have the unexpected happen.  We have had those moments where everything was going fine – life was good - but even in those moments many of us couldn’t shake that feeling that something bad was just around the corner.

Good News … Bad News.  How can faith help you in those type of moments?

I want you to meet a guy in the Bible whose entire life seems to be a story of Good News … Bad News.  In Genesis 37, we are introduced to Jacob’s descendants.  You might remember one of them, his name is Joseph.

Good News: You are your Father’s favorite son              Bad News: The rest of your brothers resent you

Good News: Your Father has given you a lovely gift      Bad News: Your brothers are not plotting to kill you

Good News: One of your brother’s feel sorry for you      Bad News: You will not be killed, but you will be a slave

Now in our story, Joseph finds himself in Egypt as a slave.  He is a good-looking and hard-working young man.

Good News: He is able to get a job working for the top guy in Egypt.

Bad News: The wife of his boss makes false accusations about him and he is thrown in jail!

Being in prison must have been a déjà vu moment for Joseph.

Good News: He is able to do a soon-to-be-released prisoner a favor who promises to help him gain release from prison

Bad News: The man forgets about Joseph for the next two years!

This constant back and forth of Good News … Bad News is enough to leave you with whiplash.  Perhaps you can relate? Having bounced from Good News to Bad News.  

What do you do, when the announcement is the plant is closing? Your job is being down-sized?

You marriage or relationship is coming apart?

Your kids are running away from God?

You children are causing you to lose sleep with worry?

The doctor calls and it isn’t good news?

How would you respond? How have you responded?  What should our response be when Plan A – The Good News becomes Plan B – cleaning up the mess of the Bad News?  What do you do? or better yet What would you do if you were absolutely confident God was with you in that moment?  The reason I ask is that for most of us when life isn’t turning out the way we had hoped for, we almost always default to believing that God has abandoned us.  But the simple truth is that God is there.  God is always there!  The problem is that we allow our circumstances to distort our perspective on God. If we admit it, we all have emotionally (spiritually) been where the Psalmist was when he wrote: 

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”  

Psalm 42:2-3 NIV 

Joseph certainly must have felt like that in the midst of the many detours of his life – Can you imagine the pain, the frustration, the anguish Joseph must have felt at every turn – Good News – wait for it – Bad News. Imagine Joseph at the bottom of the pit. Imagine home disappearing over the horizon as he is carted off as a slave. Imagine his thoughts as he sits in prison. Joseph may have lived a life privilege – he may have been spoiled beyond reason, BUT he did not deserve any of this!

Joseph had to be lonely, scared, and full of questions – “If God cares about me, why am I here? Why me? Why now?”  Each of us has been there.  We’ve been in the pit - in the prison.  We have cried the prayers – “Why me?” Why now?” “God, I don’t deserve this!” “God, where are you? Why have you abandoned me like this?” “God, this isn’t the plan!”

Let me comfort you by saying all of that is normal.  Remember, it is our default position – in the midst of our plans going awry, our natural conclusion is that God has left us. But let’s look again at the story of Joseph: 

Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there. The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. (Genesis 39:1-2)

Did you hear it?  The Lord was with Joseph. 

If you take the time to let this story sink in, it can change your entire perspective on life.  We tend to think that the phrase, The Lord is with you means that everything in life is Good.  Make that life is Great - The Lord is with you!

The Lord is with you means

                Your parents love you

                You have a college degree and a great job

                You are married (with two wonderful and perfect children)

                You own a house and have equity (with a white picket fence) –

But in this story of faith, this is where our thoughts tend to not match up with God’s thoughts:  

When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, ⁴ Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. ⁵ From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. (Genesis 39:3-5)

Joseph isn’t confident that the Lord is with Him because of how good things are … let that sink in … Joseph isn’t confident that the Lord is with Him because of how good things are. Things are going well because Joseph believes the Lord is with him.  In other words, the Lord is with him in the pit, as a slave, in the prison …

Even though life was not turning out the way Joseph planned – Plan A.  Joseph still made a choice to respond in all circumstances as if God is with him.  Joseph could have just as easily made a choice to be bitter and angry.  But he doesn’t!  Joseph allows himself to think – to believe – that while this isn’t the plan I hoped for, maybe God has a different plan. That brings us to the tough question of life – What are God’s plans for your life?

There is a simple answer:  The first step in knowing God’s will for your life is to get to know God. And Beyond that, there aren’t any steps. People, there are not any magic formulas or equations for determining God’s will for your life. Simply get to know God.  Discovering God’s will for your life is often trial and error –Good News – Bad News. Sometimes we get it wrong and sometimes we have no clue that we are getting it right until much later.  You see, God’s will is as much about the person we are becoming as it is where are going.  You may not get to choose what your future will be, but at any given time you do get to choose why your living the way you do.

Let me explain:  We spend so much of our time fixated on the what, when, and where of life … What is happening to us? Is this disease fatal? Will our kids turn out okay? Can we pay the electric bill?  We focus our attention on when things might happen … How long will our savings hold out? When will the kids finally move out of the house? How long before our credit is repaired? We even spend time asking about where we will end up?  Where will we live? Where am I going to work? Is this where I am supposed to be?

The problem is we have it all out of focus. Focus on the why – the what, when, where will come.  You may not get to choose where you work, but you do get to choose why you work.  You may not get to choose when you become a parent or a grandparent, but you do to get to choose why you want children. You may not get to choose what your future is going to be, but at any given point you do get to choose why you are living the way you do.

Focus on the why – especially when the what, when, and where don’t happen as you planned.  If you can focus on the why the rest will come – might not be as you planned, but they will come.  In the interim, hang on to your central purpose in life and one way (Plan A) or another (Plan B) the details will work themselves out.

Our view of God is way too limited.  We think God is only with us when life is Good – we view the detours – the Plan Bs – as the story of God abandoning us or punishing us. BUT that is not so.  Remember, Joseph made the choice to trust God – to trust that God was always with him.  In the midst of all the Bad news – the broken dreams and the unfilled plans – He made a choice to trust God.

In the midst of all the detours that life presents – all the plan Bs – you have but one thing to do …

What would you do if you were confident God was with you?

 ***** You can learn more about faith in amid life's detours by reading Plan B by Pete Wilson *****