It was not you who sent me here, but God. (Genesis 45:8)
I’m a dad caddie. My twelve-year-old son plays in local STPGA tournaments, and I walk every round with him, helping however I can. During a recent tournament, he stood on the tee of a dogleg-left par 5. Since he normally hits a fade, I said, “Aim toward the right edge of the row of trees on the left. Your ball should work back to the middle.”
Instead, he pulled the shot and hit it perfectly straight—into the trees.
He looked at me, disappointed and confused, and said, “Dad, you told me it was going to fade.”
I smiled. “Keep your head up. Grab your 7-iron, and let’s chip it back into the fairway.”
I still smile warmly whenever I think about that moment. His innocence and instinct to blame me made it unforgettable. It also reminded me that he is becoming a full-fledged human being.
So are we.
When life unfolds differently than we expected, our first instinct is often to blame someone. We suffer, and like my son standing beside that tee box, we often assume the problem lies with the One who leads us rather than with our own failures, the sinful choices of others or ourselves, or simply the brokenness of this fallen world.
Joseph could have blamed God.
For more than twenty years, he endured betrayal, slavery, false accusation, imprisonment, and abandonment before God raised him to become Pharaoh’s second-in-command. Then he stood face to face with the brothers who had sold him into slavery and declared, “It was not you who sent me here, but God.”
Wait a minute. God sent him there?
Weren’t his brothers responsible? Absolutely.
Joseph never minimizes their guilt. Later he tells them, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”
His brothers freely chose evil, yet their wickedness never placed Joseph outside God’s sovereign care. They intended destruction; God intended deliverance. Through their evil, God preserved His covenant family and, ultimately, the line through which the Messiah would come.
The same mystery runs throughout Scripture. Judas freely betrayed Jesus. Peter freely denied Him. Satan sought to destroy the Messiah. Yet through every human and demonic act, God’s redemptive purposes moved forward exactly as He intended. Human responsibility and divine sovereignty meet in the infinite wisdom of God.
Tim Keller writes:
“If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because He hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have, at the same moment, a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. Indeed, you can’t have it both ways.”
Faith does not answer every question. It teaches us whom to trust while we wait.
Perhaps the greatest question we will ever answer in this life is this:
Is God good?
For the believer, the cross settles that question forever.
Keller also writes:
“We may not know why God allows our particular suffering, but we do know what the reason cannot be: it cannot be because He doesn’t love us. The cross proves His love beyond question.”
I love my son Luke far more than he knows. His misunderstanding of me—or of what is happening—never changes my love for him.
How much more does our heavenly Father love His children?
We may not always understand His purposes on this side of eternity, but we can trust His heart. The cross has already settled the question of His love.
Prayer: Lord, I do not know all things. But one day I will see You face to face. Whether You answer every question I have carried or simply overwhelm me with the beauty of Your love and glory, my questions will no longer matter. You will be enough.