We'll See God, Part 1

Well, there was a Chinese fable that goes something like this. A farmer had only one horse and one day his horse ran away. And his neighbor said, “I’m so sorry, this is such bad news, you must be so upset.” And the farmer just said, “We’ll see.” And a few days later, his horse came back and with twenty more wild horses with it and his son and he were able to corral all twenty-one horses.

And his neighbor says, “Congratulations! You must be so happy! This is such great news.” And the farmer said, “We’ll see.” Well, one of the wild horses kicked the man’s only son, breaking both his legs severely. And his neighbors came and said, “I’m so sorry, this is such bad news, you must be so upset.” And the farmer said, “We’ll see.”

Well, the country went to war and every able-bodied young man was drafted to fight and the war was terrible and killed every young man. Except the farmer’s son was spared since his broken legs prevented him from being drafted. And the neighbor said, “Congratulations, this is such good news. You must be so happy.” And the farmer said, “We’ll see.”

You see, the God of the Bible is the “we’ll see” God. When He created Adam and Eve in the garden to have intimate fellowship with Him and they sinned and broke fellowship and it looked like God’s plan for humanity was forever separated, “We’ll see.”

When Abraham, who was designated to be the father of many, many nations and he was going to provide the lineage through which Jesus would come, but his wife Sarah was barren, “We’ll see.” When the Israelites were trapped in Egypt and they were His chosen people, the nation He had built and that looked like all was lost, “We’ll see.”

When Moses comes to save them from Pharaoh and take them into the Promised Land, the first thing they run into is the Red Sea and they are trapped. And it looks like they are either going to be drowned or have to go back into slavery in Egypt. “We’ll see.”

When Peter, one of Christ’s closest disciples denies Him three times on his arrest, it looks like Peter is disqualified. “We’ll see.”

When Christ, who is the plan of God for the redemption of mankind, is killed on the cross and in the grave and it looks like, once again, God’s plans are thwarted and His promises will not bear out, “We’ll see.”

Folks, we still serve the “we’ll see” God. Now, it’s easy, I think, to see life as a series of mountains and valleys connected by a few very short plateaus in my experience.

And several years ago, I was in a valley. Oh, sure, on the outside everything looked great. I had a great job, a great family, a great reputation but inside I was dying. I was dry, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

And a marriage of over twenty years was hanging in the balance. It looked like it wasn’t going to make it, we didn’t know if our marriage would survive. And with it, the plans that God had to birth our purposes through Shelley and through I and through us together, “We’ll see.”

How many of you have experienced a valley in the last couple years? A few of us, right?

I had a friend who said, “You know, in my life it seems like, Gregg, to be honest, I’m either in a valley, just coming out of a valley, or about ready to enter a valley.”

Well, I don’t know about that, but I do know this, Jesus said in John 16:33, “I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.”

So, I’ve tried to adopt the posture of rather than trying to avoid valleys, to learn from the Lord how to navigate the valleys that we experience.

So, let’s take a look at Joseph. I call Joseph a valley veteran - of Genesis 37 through 45.

Joseph had these two dreams, the dream of the sheaves of grain and then the sun, moon, and stars and bows down to his family.

And Joseph is not quite smart enough to figure out older brothers don’t like to have things rubbed in their face. I’m the youngest of three brothers and when I started reading that story I was like, “Oh no, this isn’t going to end well.” I know how this ends, with a bloody nose and a bruise.

But for him, it actually ended worse. He ended up being thrown in the pit and he was sold by his family. He gets sent down to Potiphar’s house and you saw he did everything right. He served in his capacity as the captain of the guard.

Did everything right, but he was wrongly accused. And as a result, Potiphar, the people he served so well, they sent him to prison. But Joseph still chose to serve - the baker and the cupbearer were there.

Unfortunately for the baker, the dream didn’t go so well. For the cupbearer, he says, “You’re going to be restored to your place of service with Pharaoh.” He says, “And when you do, would you remember me?” And these haunting words are in Scripture and it says, “But he forgot Joseph.”

Two more years Joseph waited in prison. Now, if we had intersected Joseph in prison right and said, “Hey, Joe, how is it going? You know, you had this great dream, these promises from God,” Joseph is like, “Not great at all. First, I’m sold by my family, then I’m betrayed by the people that I have given my life in service to, and then I end up in prison.”

And then in an instant, Pharaoh has a dream. The cupbearer remembers and he’s restored in front of the Pharaoh and ends up ruling in Egypt.

His family is starving in Israel, they need food, they come to Egypt, they don’t Joseph is down there, there’s an encounter with his brothers. And in that encounter, he unveils his identity. They see him and they are like, “Oh no. We are going to get ours.”

But Joseph looks at them and he says I think one of the most amazing sentences in the Bible. He said, “You sold me, but God sent me to preserve life. You sold me, but God sent me.”

And then with faith, Joseph, after this journey he has been on, at the end of his life, he says, “You’re not going to stay here forever. You are going back to Israel, all of you. And when you do, you take my bones with you.” Even though at that time, he’s still in Egypt with no signs of returning.

What an amazing story, really. But let’s take a closer look at what is going on here and see if we can maybe tap into God’s perspective on it.

So, at seventeen he has this dream of his destiny and it’s from God, it’s a good thing, it’s a promise that he is going to hold onto.

And how does that journey begin? It begins with the pit. Not so good.

But might I suggest to you that the pit is actually dream fulfillment stage one? And you’re like, “How is that, Gregg?” Well, I can assure you that Joseph was very happy in Israel. He was the favorite of his father. He already had this multi-colored coat. He was the baby.
And he had an inheritance. He had an identity. He wasn’t going anywhere. But the problem was the Lord needed him in Egypt, so the Lord used the pit to get him to Egypt.

Well, then he ends up in Potiphar’s house as a servant. You might say, “Well, gosh, how does that help?”

But might I suggest to you that Potiphar’s house is actually dream fulfillment stage two?

And you might say, “How is that, Gregg?” Well, think of it this way. If he hadn’t worked in Potiphar’s house, he never would have learned how to rule in a different culture. He never would have learned the ways and made the relationships to be able to walk into his destiny at some point, and he certainly wouldn’t have been able to learn to resist temptation either wealth or from Potiphar’s wife. So, he grew in character in Potiphar’s house.

And that ended him up in prison and that looks like a bad thing.

But might I suggest to you, prison is dream fulfillment stage three? And how is that, you might ask. Well, if he hadn’t been in prison he never would have met the cupbearer. And if he hadn’t met the cupbearer and interpreted his dream, he never would have been put in front of Pharaoh to interpret Pharaoh’s dream.

You see, through the natural lens, all of these things look hopeless. They all look like a retreat from the promises of God and the things that are good for Joseph. But Joseph didn’t get stuck. He learned how to navigate the valley.

And he waited in this valley for thirteen years. Why wait? Why did Joseph have to wait thirteen years?

Because Joseph wasn’t ready for his destiny. You see, he was selfish, he was proud, he was unskilled at seventeen, and he wasn’t even in the land of his destiny. Joseph’s character and capability weren’t ready for his destiny.

The second thing we’ve, we learn from this, his faith was being tested so that he could learn about God’s faithfulness to him through these circumstances and grow into fullness.

So, Joseph gained a new perspective on his journey, because he learned who God is, His nature. He wrestled with God in those places and he discovered more about Him and he learned to trust His ways.

So, Joseph chose to believe God’s promises, not his circumstances or his feelings, which certainly belied the stories and promises that he had been given. And at the end of it then, he could look at his brothers and say, “No, you sold me, but God sent me to preserve life.” And as a result, he could declare in faith that his bones would be buried in his homeland because he knew the Lord would take them back there.

What we learn from Joseph is that the pit, Potiphar’s house, and prison can be the end of the journey or the preparation for the main event.

You see, this is our story as well. We have to learn to contend and navigate the pit, Potiphar’s house, and prison - our version of it. We have got to contend for our destiny.

We have to be transformed by our life experiences and our faith must grow as our character and our capability are developed with it. And we must hope in the “we’ll see” God.

Adam referenced the ministry that my wife Shelley and I started with some other people and our daughters and it’s called Iron Bell. And when we were first forming it, you know, people would come to help us, decided they were moving back, there were relational issues, the neighbors were upset, all kinds of chaos.

And I sat down with my pastor at that time and I said, “Pastor, this isn’t going so well. You know, I could throw in the towel. I don’t need to do this.” And he said, “Gregg, let me tell you this story. It’s a true story.” He says, “I have a friend who is a pastor in Oregon and he has a congregant who is a wine grower.”

And he says, “He has these vines and he’s a little different.” He said, “Every morning he grabs his coffee and his – rolls up his newspaper. And he walked through his vineyard and it would go, thwack, thwack, thwack.

And he would do this every day for year in and year out. And one year, there was a terrible storm that hit the region and a lot of the vineyards in the area were wiped out. They had great damage to their vines. But his suffered very little damage and everybody was like, “What did you do? How did it happen?”

He said, “Well, it’s very simple.” He said, “Every morning I would get up, I’d grab my coffee, I’d roll up my newspaper, I would walk through the vineyard, and I’d take my newspaper and I would thwack each vine. Thwack.

He said, “And when I thwacked that vine, it signals trauma to the vine and the vine says, ‘Go deeper. Send your roots deeper. You are experiencing trauma. You have to go deeper.’ And it sends its roots deeper. So, when the big storm came, they were ready for it.”

So, my pastor looked at me, he says, “Gregg, you have just been thwacked.” God never does anything broad until He does it deep.

See, God is a farmer. And I think because we don’t live in an agricultural society anymore, we lose track of that. See, a farmer doesn’t go out and plant a seed and then the next day come back and say, “Where is my harvest? What happened here?” No, he goes out and first he tills the soil, then he plants a seed, then he tends the crop, he weeds it, he waters it. Then he comes in for a harvest.

And many times in our life, we want God to be the instant God. God, this is what I want. And I have seen God work miraculously in an instant, like He did when He brought Joseph in front of Pharaoh. And I have seen some amazing things that God has done in people’s lives and stories I have. But you know what I have seen more is that God is the God of the process.

Shelley and I went, we were visiting our kids in Virginia and in that region in Virginia it’s a burgeoning winegrowing area. I said, “I see all these wineries around, this must be really good soil.” And they said, “No, no, the soil is terrible.” I said, “Really? Tell me more.” They said, “Well, in most parts it’s kind of craggy and it’s hard for the roots to get new nutrients and water. So, it forces the roots to go deep to gain the nutrients. And it’s in the struggle to gain the nutrients that the greatest fruit is produced.” I said, “Oh, God really is a farmer.”

Romans 5:3 through 5 says it this way, “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings.”

Because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope; and hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

You see the progression? Think we all need a renewed perspective on God’s process. You know, why a process?

Why is there a process that God uses?

Well, when I was in leadership at Yum! I had the fortune of working with Dr. Noel Tichy who was one of the foremost experts in adult learning.

And he said, “You have three zones that your people are going to operate in. All of us do.” He said, “There is the comfort zone. That’s where you’re comfortable. Then there’s the panic zone.” He said, “That’s as if, Gregg, let’s say I wanted to train you like a Navy SEAL and we go out your first night and you’re in the shape you’re in and I push you out that airplane at midnight. You’re a mile offshore and you don’t have any instructions. You’ve got to find your way back.”

He said, “But the thing is, there’s this sweet spot in the middle in between those called the learning zone.” And he said, “We can create the learning zone for people. If we can create just enough discomfort, you know, maybe a little pain, not in the physical sense, but just a rethinking of their circumstances, that’s where the growth comes. That’s the learning.” He said, “So that’s what you need to do.”

I was reminded of a story when I was at a church once and they had a motivational speaker come in. And it was a guy who had no arms and no legs and he was missing them from birth. And he told the story of when he was young he was on the floor getting ready for school and he was putting his shirt on, which you can imagine would be a very, very difficult proposition for him.

And his mom was in the kitchen and the neighbor came and knocked on the door and said, “Hey, I need to borrow and egg. Can you grab me an egg?” And the neighbor could see the son struggling to put the shirt on. She said, “Oh, no, you don’t have to get that right now. Help your son first.” And the mom looked at the neighbor and said, “I am helping my son.”

You see, in our life we all love the winds of favor, don’t we? But here’s the thing, in God’s kingdom, winds of resistance usually come first. Winds of resistance come to strengthen us, to cause our roots to grow deep, to prepare us for the purposes and the promises that God has for our life. Winds of favor, yes. But first, winds of resistance.