That Don't Make No Sense

“T

hat don’t make no sense!”  Movie aficionados among you may recognize a quote from the movie “O Brother Where Art Thou?”  I must admit, the first time I saw it at my parents’ home I fell out in the floor laughing when I heard this line.  What could be more nonsensical than a band of three convicts, having escaped prison, searching for a buried treasure which doesn’t exist and in the process getting into more trouble than you can imagine?

Watching their exploits, I wondered what would happen next that could make the situation they were presently in seem harmless.  And, just about that time, I received my answer.  Something more fantastic, far beyond anything you can imagine occurred, and the boys found themselves in another fix, much worse, more complicated, and more serious than the preceding predicament.  In all honesty, the movie could be have been subtitled, “The Predicament du Jour!”

We are all familiar with this scenario, especially if we are living a life of faith.  Just about the time we have the next step figured out, just when we have the master blueprint all drawn, when every “T” is crossed and every “I” is dotted, that’s usually when the unforeseen happens and all our plans go up in smoke.  We look at the new situation life throws our way, we scratch our head, we may even shed a few tears, and we say, “God, that don’t make no sense!”  I’ll bet you didn’t know God spoke Southern, did you?

Well, lest we believe we are all alone when this happens, let us look at the life of a man who lived a long, long time ago; who understood that life “don’t make no sense” and that sometimes even our best and most noble attempts often fail.  They don’t fail because they are bad or wrong, they fail because God has something better for us, even though we can’t see or understand it from where we are now standing.

Genesis 41:1 gives us a very straightforward look at the life of Joseph.  The passage simply says, “When two full years had passed, Pharaoh had a dream…” The whole of Joseph’s life can be summed up in this statement.  His was a life of waiting, of not understanding the difficult circumstances.  I am sure Joseph never understood why his brothers betrayed him, why Potipher’s wife tried to seduce him, why he was unfairly imprisoned, or why the cupbearer forgot him.  In fact, the Scriptures never tell us that Joseph ever received any of this information.

After trying to orchestrate his own exit from the prison by asking the cupbearer to speak to Pharaoh on his behalf, we find Joseph waiting two more years until Pharaoh had a dream.  But once Pharaoh had his dream, Joseph was positioned and ready for God’s use.  After all that had happened to him, after all the false accusations, after all the betrayal, and after all the long nights in a lonely prison wondering what had become of his world, Joseph found himself second only to Pharaoh in all the land of Egypt.

My fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to take great encouragement from this passage of scripture and from this man Joseph.  The last verse of Genesis 40 tells us the cupbearer forgot Joseph.  The cupbearer did; God didn’t.  For the next two years, he was with Joseph and he was already making preparations for Joseph’s promotion two years down the road, a promotion Joseph never dreamed of!

This is the way God works.  Whatever your present situation today, I pray you will know that God is not only above it; he is working beyond it!  It’s when life just “don’t’ make no sense” from our perspective that God does his greatest work in us and through us.  Stay the course! Hang in there! Trust God’s heart even when you can’t see his hand.  One day it will all make sense!  Who knows, that day just might be today!