Gen 41: 39-40; Luke 1: 28
And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”
When nothing makes sense, and it seems your life is slowly ebbing away in a world of nothingness, with no achievements, no qualifications, no connections, no success; your dreams and visions, which were once a castle of gold seems to have crumbled down right under your eyes – Remember the following things…
Joseph was in a similar situation. Unexpectedly, this young man was sold into slavery by the people he called ‘brothers’. In an instant, Joseph was snatched away from the loving hands of his father and sold into a foreign land of Egypt. He was suddenly caught off from his friends, and social life. Just imagine the emotional and psychological pain!
Still trying to recover from this trauma, he was yet again plunged into another ordeal in Potiphar’s house, and finally ended up in prison. The little freedom available to slaves had evaporated in a jiffy! Here he was, a slave, in a foreign land, in a prison, with no hope, no connections, no material accumulations, no opportunities in life, no friends – yet God called Him a successful man?
This reminds me of the story of Mary, who was found with a child after she was engaged to Joseph. What a shameful and humiliating experience for Mary to be found pregnant before her wedding day! She was supposed to be a virgin – an expected tag for any woman of her class and clan. Mary’s future was at stake; and her wedding about to be ruined. Who will believe her account of the story? Who will believe she was innocent, and still a virgin? Yet the Angel said she was highly favored; and God was with her?
God does not look at your earthly possessions to call you blessed. He does not consider your certificates, achievements, connections, worldly accumulations, or material gains, to measure your success level. God calls you successful when He considers His plans for your life (your destiny), and His presence abiding with you!
Secondly, God does not define your life by what you’ve been through, or currently experiencing – this is just a snapshot in a moment of history (or eternity). The totality of your life is defined by a combination of all the ‘snapshots’ (of your life), and the beautiful tapestry it produces at the end!
God could confidently call Joseph a successful man; and Mary a woman that’s highly favored (despite their current ordeals – at the time), because He has seen that the end of their lives is characterized by beauty, honor, promotion, and glory! God lives in the ‘eternal present’ – meaning He is able to travel back and forth on the path of eternity (or the road of your destiny). God gets the ‘whole’ picture, while we only get ‘snapshots’ and moments in time that makes no sense to us!
The point here is that when nothing makes sense (and you have absolutely nothing to boast of), remember you are analyzing, or judging a snapshot of your life, and cannot draw conclusions from incomplete data! The full picture or complete puzzle is already known by God! When He declares you ‘highly favored’, while experiencing life’s challenges/chaos; or proclaims you are successful in the middle of your ‘nothingness and failures’, you better believe it and rejoice!
So when nothing makes sense, and all you have is ‘God-sense’, remember you are still blessed, successful, and highly favored! It’s not the ‘now’ that matters, but the totality of your life at the end!
Shalom!