I keep hearing the same thought swirl around my head lately. “This is not where I thought I was headed.” It isn’t that I feel despair or disconnected from God. It’s just this underlying awareness that right now my life doesn’t look the same as it used to. And there is an ache that comes with it, because I know that the changes that led me to this new place aren’t things that I would have chosen for myself.
Joseph knew that ache so well. He had been given dreams, visions for his future, by God. He had walked confidently (perhaps too confidently) toward them, but he found himself sitting in a prison. None of what led him there would have been his chosen path, yet every seeming detour prepared and positioned him for the fulfillment of the very dreams that God had put in his heart.
Is your current circumstance causing you to question? God, did I misunderstand you? Did I go the wrong way? What does this place have to do with the dream I thought you gave me? I encourage you to take those questions to God. Talk it out with Him and let Him in on your hurts, your disappointments, and your unknowns. Because even in the prison parts of Joseph’s story it is made clear that God’s favor was on Joseph the entire time. You can be both in favorable relationship with God and in a place that you don’t like and don’t understand all at the same time. Lean in even harder and look for how God is using this location to prepare and position you for the thing God created you to accomplish.
Living Parakaleo 