Given at the Lynnville (IL) church on August 14, 2005. The Scripture Reading is from Genesis 45: 1-15…

       There was a time that I subscribed to a number of magazines regarding the various hobbies that I liked to at least ponder many years ago. And when they would arrive each month, or every-other month depending on the magazine, I could hardly contain myself until I’d devoured the entire issue… ads and all… from cover-to-cover. ‘Antique Power’… that was the one all about old tractors and equipment… was one such magazine! One issue contained a series of pictures showing a number of steam engines and threshers that had fallen through the various bridges they were attempting to cross. Let me read some excerpts from the article that accompanied them…

   “Crossing waterways in the early days was a dangerous challenge.  Bridges were narrow and treacherous.  Some people opted to drive through the streams, safer in one respect, but still there was the threat of danger.  Either way, many operators were hurt or even killed.

“Road commissions originally built bridges—mostly by the trial-and-error method—for the horse and buggy.  They were good enough to hold the automobile but most failed to handle a steam engine or a big tractor.

“Tax money had to be raised to improve the situation.  Wood was eventually replaced by steel but, sadly, some of these steel bridges collapsed under heavy loads.  Early on, little true engineering went into building a bridge.

“By 1921, Nebraska had passed laws to raise the load capacity on bridges to 20 tons.  Michigan required 15 tons capacity.  This paved the way for stronger, safer bridges across the nation.

“Ironically, bridges became stronger as threshing rigs became lighter.  Still, for decades the load rating of rural bridges was determined by the weight of a steam engine.”

How much weight do you think the very first bridges had to hold…probably the weight of a person and whatever he or she was carrying. From there there were horses, then horses and wagons, and so on and so on…until the bridges of today that have to support scads of 80,000# semi’s and cars hitting them at seventy miles per hour. And let’s face it…the bridge builders of the Middle Ages, say, could not have comprehended the concept of an 80,000# vehicle, let alone design a bridge to support it. Each generation has learned from the one before. The Romans could build huge aqueducts over vast distances to transport water, and built roads and bridges capable of moving their armies around the known world. But as populations increased, the need for more and larger transportation increased as well. And, as those needs rose, so did the problems of getting across obstacles.

Many, many bridges have been built throughout the centuries…and as the article said, most used the trial-and-error method of engineering…if one design failed someone would come up with a different one. The problem was, sometimes people died when one of these poor designs didn’t work out! So each generation of bridge-builder has not only had to learn from the failures and success of those who came before him, but also, by building on those successes and failures, to anticipate the growths and needs of the future.

Mankind has learned an awful lot over the last four-or-five thousand years. But, even the technology that we now take for granted, such as computers and cell-phones, would not be possible without each one of the curious people over the centuries learning what others have learned and building and adding to that knowledge.

Over the years I have tried to get across the idea that the building blocks of our future are the lessons learned in the past. Without any one of those building blocks, the world that we know today would not exist…it would be somehow different. So, when it comes our turn to add to this never-ending construction of life, we would all do well to know why some things are the way they are and how to best make use of that knowledge.

And except for one exception, the same holds true for our faith. It is just as important to be aware of how the religion of today has become what it is, and of how your personal faith has reached the point that it has. But be very cautious!! Because the basic truths that Jesus taught two thousand some years ago have not, nor ever will, change! And it is important to know what those truths are. That has always been my intent…to try to pass on some of those basic truths.

Having said that, however, I’m afraid that there is one truth that mankind has struggled with since the very beginning of mankind. And to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever found a real, true answer… and that is, ‘why do good people have to suffer’?

       Some years ago I bid on and bought a book titled ‘Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People’. I’ve never read it! The fact is, I already know! Or, perhaps I should say, I know what the answer is supposed to be! And it is right here in this morning’s verses from Genesis!

       Consider with me, if you will, all that had happened in Joseph’s life… because he was his father’s favorite, his brothers grew to despise him and plotted to kill him outright. Dissuaded from that, they sold him to a band of traders headed to Egypt. There, he worked to earn a position of trust in Potiphar’s household, only to lose it and be thrown in prison through the mechanizations of a scorned woman! None of these things were of Joseph’s doing… none of them were ‘deserved’ by him… and one could certainly say with some confidence that none of it was very pleasant for him to deal with… in fact, most of it was outright cruel by our standards… and yet, through it all, he kept his faith in God!

       Now, I’m sure that any who knew Joseph’s story up to this point might well have wondered, “Why bother?” Indeed, many of us today may have occasion to question our beliefs… I mean, what is the point of believing in and following a God who seems either to have no control or, at the least, refuses to exercise any control over such things? And if all of this “GOD” stuff is in doubt, do any of the ‘truths’ and ‘beliefs’ that we have held mean anything? Indeed, does life mean anything?

Why does God ‘let things happen’? Most Pastors would probably tell you that He doesn’t, or that we just can’t always understand His ways. And that is true. But what DIFFERENCE does it make RIGHT NOW? Why does life have to be like this RIGHT NOW!? Do you want the truth? I don’t know! And I doubt that anyone alive today really knows.

I can only tell you this. There have been a lot of times in my life when I was alone. I don’t mean physically, but mentally, spiritually, and psychologically alone. In other words, I could be at a high school dance or football game and surrounded by hundreds of people and feel totally alone. I could be at a church service or youth event with countless others and feel totally alone. I could be with family or friends, or even that ‘special someone’ and feel totally alone. But through it all, when I look back on my life from this end I can see that I have NEVER been totally alone! Even during the years of my life that I tried to deny even the existence of a ‘god figure’, I can see now that God never denied my existence, and has always been there.

And that is what Joseph sees when he looks back at his life. He calls his brothers to him and says, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. 

“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.”

All that Joseph had been through was a part of God’s plan to save the Israelites from starvation, and as Joseph stood at the successful end of that task and looked back, he realized it! Just as we often look back at parts of our lives and suddenly realize, “THAT’S why that had to happen! Now I understand!”

I’m sure most of you have either read the story or heard the song titled ‘Footprints in the Sand’. I’d like to take a moment and read it aloud…

One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking along
the beach with the Lord.

Across the dark sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene, he noticed
two sets of footprints in the sand,
one belonging to him and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
he looked back at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times along the path of his life
there was only one set of footprints.
He also noticed that it happened at the
very lowest and saddest times in his life.
This bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.

“Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you,
you’d walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most
troublesome times in my life there is
only one set of footprints.
I don’t understand why when I needed you most
you would leave me.”

The Lord replied “My precious, precious child,
I love you and would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints in the sand,
it was then that I carried you.”

       God is always there! He is always working in our lives! And even at those lowest points… when we sometimes feel forgotten and abandoned… when we begin to wonder where God is in all of our trials and sufferings… when we look up into the heavens and search for Him and wonder why we can’t see Him… we’re just looking for Him in the wrong place! All we have to do is look down! Not up, into heaven… but down… for that’s where God will be… under us, holding and lifting us up, supporting us and encouraging us!

       That’s what all of our life experiences teach us! That’s what the life experiences of all of our forefathers teach us! And yet it seems as if each of us have to learn it and accept it over and over again… God does know what He’s doing… He is God! All we have to do is trust Him… trust Him to guide us… to help us… and to carry us when we need it most… and to continue doing the work He has laid out for each of us to do!