Genesis 45 - God has a plan

My journey of faith and the struggle that I had was never if I believed that God was real or not. It has never really occurred to me that he's not real. Look at the Grand Canyon or the stars in the sky, listen to the first cry of a newborn or feel the power of Niagara Falls. What was hard for me is that I lacked the knowledge that this almighty powerful God who made the earth and everything in it wanted anything to do with me. Why would he care about this one little soul, one of billions of people that have existed on this earth?

In this chapter Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and they were afraid that he was still angry about them selling him into slavery. But Joseph responds "It was not you who sent me here, but God." Joseph sees the order of events that needed to come together to save lives during the famine. When I've read this story in the past at some level I was thinking "Of course God does that for the line of Israel and weaving together the stories that will be in the Bible. Does he really put things together for me? Do I matter to him too?

Yes, he cares for me.

These past few days I went to a conference in Philadelphia and partially due to this blog I've been struggling with what's important in my life. Is selling real estate really something that impacts the kingdom for eternity? Is this where God wants me? In my mind I was thinking that this conference may be a place to find some perspective from other real estate agents of how they believe that this job of mine can fit into the fabric of living a life of faith and caring for people above money. The presenter is a believer and I knew that he was going to be at the reception in the evening. But I also knew that it would be difficult to talk to him. God had a plan for me.

Throughout the day I had been talking with one of the staff people for the company who was presenting the seminar, but had forgotten my business cards. That evening, after I had refilled my business cards, I saw him and began to talk with him again, although he was already in conversation with someone else. As it turns out, God had orchestrated for those people to be together. Although the staff person worked for that company part time, his full time position was pastor of a church. The woman that he was talking to was the youth pastor for her church. They were able to encourage me as to how our profession allows us the flexibility of schedule to also pursue other ministries. I was so encouraged to have gone to this conference and found two pastors, it felt like God affirming my career.

Thanks be to God for caring about the details in our lives. Praise him for being big enough to care about the details of one of billions of people. Glory to his name for not being just the God of the Bible, but for being the God in our lives today.