What's the aperture of your heart?

There's an ancient blessing that God gave his people. At the centre of this blessing is the smile of God.

John asserts that there is a throne in heaven and one who sits upon it and that that person is not me.

How then are we to live?

At the end of Joseph's epic tale stands a remarkable act of forgiveness.

How was this possible? How can we forgive today?

The difference the Holy Spirit makes.

There is an end to prison. God decides. God lifts up. God saves.

Joseph in Prison: Living well in the weight of the wait

Joseph knew God as present help. And future hope. 

He experienced his steadfast love. God had planted a dream in Joseph’s heart that couldn’t be uprooted. 

1. Have you spent time in “prison”? What was it? Are you in a “prison” now? 

2. What do you do when the “walls press in”, when the weight of the wait seems too much? 

Do you sulk (give up)? Do you strain to regain control (fight)? Or do you just try to ignore it through substitutes?
What does your sulking look like? What does your straining look like? What does your substituting look like? 

3. Who around you is most impacted by your sulking or your straining for control or substituting? How are they impacted? How do you know?

“In surrender, we give up control, but we do not give up agency.

Control is the ability to determine outcomes and circumstances. Agency is the exercise of our God-given, God-directed, God-empowered ability to take action. To use our agency is to initiate and create and take responsibility.” John Ortberg, Steps.

Do the opposite to emotion-driven, ego-charged desires

Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
Luke 9:23-25

“That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. 

And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.”

C.S.Lewis, Mere Christianity 

"Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved" -Victor Hugo. Thanks Strahan Coleman for your amazing book, Beholding.

At this point in the story it is very clear Joseph is not in control. He's not the main character. God is. And God is with us in the pit.

Finding purpose is a crucial and elusive part of modern living. So how do we do it? Well.... maybe a deep read of Joseph's story is a good start.