Knowing Contentment In Every Situation

In many ways what I want to describe today is living in the favor of God. It is really an incredible gift of God to be in a place where you can be settled, confident that you don’t have to strive to earn His favor, you don’t have to escape a situation to discover His incredible grace either.

Often we want an intervention of a situation with God, but often what God will give us is a different interpretation of the situation.  S. Furtick

Our interpretation often goes through many filters, our life experience, our culture and often we things so simplistic when they are much more complex.

Let’s look at the story of Joseph and where He finds Himself.

In Genesis 40,41, Joseph is in prison and he should be having a pity party for himself, but he has enough presence of mind to recognize that there is something wrong with someone else in the prison.  He could have been so wrapped up in his own resentment, but he had empathy, he was so aware of the needs of those around him.

Don’t interpretations belong to God?  He can make sense of this.  He didn’t strut his stuff and say, “I’ve got the power”

He brought it back to God and said He can speak into this and can make sense of your situation.

quick synopsis...

Chief cupbearer – brought the king his wine.

I saw a vine with three branches, squeezed the grapes and gave the king his wine.

You are going to return to your rightful position

Chief baker

I had three baskets of bread and birds came and started eating the bread out of the basket on my head.

Joseph didn’t have the power to change the outcome of the dreams.

Now, Pharaoh has a dream in Genesis 42 and no one can interpret it two years later...I heard about you Pharaoh shared to Joseph. The shameless cupbearer forgot about him, but remembered him at this time.

7 fat cows, 7 skinny cows.  Save up in the fat years so you are ready for the lean years.

Joseph became the second in power in Egypt next to Pharaoh due to his interpretation and then application of the dream. It reminds me a little bit of Pastor Andrew Brunson, the pastor of Resurrection Church in Turkey, who had a church of 2 dozen people.  He was serving God faithfully and ended up going to prison for 2 years for what they called 'political crimes'.  Mercifully he was freed from prison and returned home to the US only to end up in the Oval Office with the opportunity to pray over President Trump.  What a journey.

I will mess up the message every time if I allow myself to focus on you are receiving the message instead of being faithful to the message that God has given me.  Joseph couldn't choose the outcome of the messages he received.  He couldn't sweeten the deal or try make things better for the baker. He spoke the truth and led from a place of humility.

We need to place our confidence in God, not confidence in confidence.  Joseph was completely confident in the God that He served and in his ability to enable him.

It is often our interpretation of the event that changes the outcome and often our lens is flawed...

We are interpreting our present through our past

We are interpreting our purpose through our pain

We are interpreting our whole life through one little situation.

We are interpreting our future through our flaws.

Steven Furtick

If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.  –Unknown-

The enemy of our souls often will just get us to focus on what is wrong with us

Don’t forget the promise that it is His strength that is made perfect in our weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9

What we look at as a deficiency is what He often will use to bring meaning into our lives.

Pray for the power to interpret your desires -  I need the Holy Spirit to show me why I want what I want.

The enemy takes a God given desire and works hard to distort it.

Pray for the wisdom to interpret your rejection -  When I learn to let go of the resentment, God wanted to do something.

I’ll never forget when I finally became a full-time pastor.  I know I have maybe told this story before, but it is so important to reiterate the point where God wanted my confidence to rest.  It couldn’t rest in my own abilities, my experience, my education, my upbringing.

God wanted me to make absolutely sure that my confidence was solely and completely in Him.  So, I will always remember how I started and I will never take for granted that He was the one who opened the door to my first pastor position.  It really had nothing to do with me, I didn’t even apply for it!!

Pray for the insight to interpret your emotions – Are we living at the level of reaction or responding?

When I react, it’s my flesh, it’s a knee-jerk reaction, it is my natural learned tendency.  When I respond, I pause, I learn to

I learn to interpret my purpose even through my pain and learn to interpret my feelings through my faith.

When I lost my father to cancer at the age of 21, it was a very difficult time for me.  It would be a process that took months for me to deal with the loss.  I can remember just crying, weeping with Sharon after we got married because all the emotions just flowed out.

However, it would be in my first youth ministry position that I would find myself coming alongside a student who lost her mother to cancer, another student who never really experienced the love of a father coming from a single parent home.  God gave me an opportunity to really connect, to understand and to come alongside these students at that time.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  Romans 8:18

Pray for clarity to understand why God has given you favor or opportunity or an advantage  in a given situation.

Learn the peace of contentment especially in the middle of a situation or place that God has you in right now.

The world is always giving you an interpretation of life through the lens of fear.

We need to come through all things through the lens of trust.

When we come to God, look at it through the lens of what He has told you in His Word, what He has whispered to you in your inner being through His Spirit!