Have you tried to do right, but things have still gone wrong? When Joseph honoured God by saying no to Potiphar’s wife, he ended up in prison. While there he told a fellow prisoner, ‘I was kidnapped from my homeland…and now I’m here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it’ (Genesis 40:15 NLT). If that’s how you feel today, God hasn’t turned His back on you. His plan for your life hasn’t been derailed. ‘The Lord shall not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the thoughts and intents of His mind’ (Jeremiah 30:24 AMPC). You may be confused and uncertain, but God isn’t. He’s using every moment of this season and every element of this experience to prepare you. ‘They bruised his feet with fetters and placed his neck in an iron collar. Until the time came to fulfil his dreams, the Lord tested Joseph’s character’ (Psalm 105:18-19 NLT). Do you remember how you felt about the tests you were given in school? At the time they felt like persecution but looking back you realise they were preparation. They revealed what you had learned. They qualified you to move to a higher level. They helped you better understand your strengths and weaknesses. The psalmist wrote: ‘For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance’ (Psalm 66:10-12 NIV). God will use people, pain, and problems to test you so that He can bring you to ‘a place of abundance’.
