I have printed this before.  But I cracked this book again recently because I knew I needed to hear what it had to say.  Since I could read this a million times over and still be compelled - I thought it was worth re-posting.  Love, Shawna

From a book on Joseph:

Joseph.  There aren't many Josephs.  We would rather pet our bitterness than wear a crown.  And that is precisely our choice...

It's funny:  the one who seeks no "whys" knows...eventually...the answer to the questions he needed not to ask. 

Joseph, that magnificent hero, became such because he pushed past the obsession with "why" and dealt instead with "how."  How can I please God?  How can I serve God?

If ever a man had the hostile right to ask "why" wouldn't it have been Joseph?  A favored son.  A faithful son.  Clean...malleable yet strong enough to report the wrongs of his brothers when asked to.  Yet cruelly rejected for his God-originated dream and for his sterling character. 

We hear no railing speech of "Why, God?"  Instead, a simple setting to the task at hand.  The question of Joseph: "what is Your will here?" 

The human question is "Why, God? Give me all Your reasons and then, maybe then I will follow You."

The legitemate question, the one that can be known is "what?"  God's "what" is:  "Do the task at hand.  Live the life you find."  And Joseph did it.  Only to suffer again, not from sin but because he wouldn't sin!  We would have screeched, "what good is it?  God is not fair and there is no justice!"

Oh, but I AM.

In the hell-hole where any reasonable person gives up because his "why" saps all his innards, the caged Joseph asked not 'why' but...."what?"  "What is Your will?  What is my task?"

"Do the task at hand.  Live the life in which you are trapped.  Do it well in the faith that I have a Divine Aim."  And Joseph did.  Even there.

The question is not "why" but "what" and through the devoted acceptance of what God wants, the "why" of His purpose emerges.  In some off-the-record unveiling to his heart, Joseph came to see God's unimaginable but brilliant purpose.  We know the end of the story.  Joseph didn't.  For him it had been a blank mystery, a puzzle he couldn't have solved. It was God's secret.  Only He could reveal it.  And He did.

"God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance."  Genesis 45:7.

Trauma creates a dilemma with God.  It throws His character into dispute, His power into doubt, His love into question.  Suffering twists our view of God so He seems both small and inept.

Suffering doesn't need explanation.  For your suffering has a life of it's own, full of unborn ideas, pulsing with mystery, rich with potential to solve your future suffering, and - most amazing - your past as well.  Your suffering holds the secrets to your appointed lot and is therefore the hiding place of your power.  You must value your suffering enough to coax it's treasure into your using.

In the end Joseph found out why.  He'd been in school, the making of a ruler, whose power saved many lives.  The "why" unmasks itself only to the faithful.  For Joseph, I AM had been enough.  God could have.  God didn't.  So God had a good reason.  Most men never make it to the end....to see.

Their furious "whys" have gnawed their mammoth potential down to a tiny bitter nub of ineffectiveness...long before the end.