Day 15 - God's Providence

The account of Joseph in Egypt is a thrilling read and one with which many of us are quite acquainted. This is the stuff we love to read: how God cares for Joseph and the good guy seems to finally do so well. But this story isn’t mainly about Joseph, it’s about the providence of God.

Yet even with his belief in God throughout his predicament in prison, that belief did not stop him from acting and working to secure his own release. He told his story to the cupbearer (though he forgot about Joseph for two full years) and how he was unjustly a slave and unjustly imprisoned. Joseph trusted God’s providence, but still knew that what happened to him was wrong and he worked to right that wrong.

Trusting in the providence of God does not resign the believer to fatalism. As D.A. Carson wrote: “Robust biblical theism encourages us to trust the goodness of the sovereign, providential God, while confronting and opposing the evil that takes place in this fallen world.”

Do you tend towards fatalism when you think of the evil of this world? Or do you seek to faithfully confront it while still trusting in God’s ultimate sovereignty?

Westminster Confession of Faith V.1, 7 “Of Providence”

1. God the great Creator of all things does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own wil, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

7. As the providence of God does, in general, reach to all creatures; so, after a most special manner, it takes care of this church, and disposes all things to the good thereof.