Lifethrumylense

Hello dear reader, we’ve made it to the month of February. I hope 2025 has been treating you well so far. I am excited to say that I am still on track with my one-year Bible plan. Which sounds like cause for celebration to me and my favourite way to celebrate anything, is to talk about the things I’ve learned from the experience. So far, I’ve completed Genesis and I’m making my way through Exodus, Matthew, Psalms and Proverbs. During my readings for January and the beginning of February, God has been pointing out one thing in particular to me. Humans have such limited perspectives, we tend to get stuck in our emotions, especially, negative ones. I struggle with that too; I’m one of those people who sometimes doesn’t see the point in getting your hopes up just to be disappointed again. Funny enough (not really funny at all), I get disappointed a lot, especially, by other humans. I lost hope at some points in my life that I’d ever find people who weren’t exhaustingly disappointing. When you look at it from a human perspective, this reaction seems logical. Most of the time we’re so clouded by our emotions that we can’t see how small of a sample size our reality is. To you and me, having any experience so frequently puts a mask on how we view the world and that’s just our very human perspective. This is where God comes in and He says, He sees the whole Venn diagram when we can only see our subset.

The bigger picture is not an easy concept to accept in any means. We have no control over space and time and we don’t understand the past until we have the perspective of the future. It can make us feel small and powerless and truth be told, I hate every second of it. I never liked the concept of time and how it just kept going. It didn’t matter if I had a bad day or if I wanted to relive a happy moment, time doesn’t stop for us to take a breath. I hated the fact that I’d inevitably have to age and that there were so many expectations as you got older. Every second that passed I felt more trapped in my existence. I still feel trapped most days, I spent so much time when I was younger trying to understand why I was so anxious about the only existence I’ve ever know while simultaneously trying to stay a kid for as long as I could. Now, I’m supposed to be an adult when all I ever wanted was to be a carefree child. I’ve often asked God why He made me this way. Why would He allow me to have the experiences that made me into this person, that is uncomfortable with things I have no control over? I never really understood why until He showed me the concept of the bigger picture.

I relate to Joseph in some ways, when I was growing up, I often felt like the people who should have loved me the most weren’t really there when I needed them or just left and never looked back. My mom always told me that I was special and God always did and always would love me and anybody He removed from my life was a blessing in disguise. I think I believed that but I also couldn’t help feeling like the common factor was me. Maybe I was special and maybe God did love me but maybe there was just something about me, that other people seemed not to like to stick around for. I can imagine Joseph having those feelings, he had eleven brothers and they all plotted against him (Gen 37:18-20). They picked on him, abused him and sold him into slavery. Sure, Reuben felt guilty about it and went back for Joseph but it was too late, he cowered in the moment that he should have stood up for his brother. (Gen 37:21-29). Joseph eventually found a moment of peace working under Potiphar, until it all came crashing down again. Someone he most likely would have become fond of, threw him into another pit (Gen 39:1-20). While God granted Joseph favour in prison, I can’t imagine it was that much of an enjoyable experience still (Gen 39:21). Joseph must have been so hopeful when God allowed him to interpret the baker and cup-bearer’s dreams (Gen 40:1-23). I would have thought that it was all over and God was making my swift way out but, nope, it took two more years for Joseph to be restored to a higher position (Gen 41:33-44). Through his position as Pharoah’s right hand, Joseph was able to see his family again, save nations through God’s guidance and give a testimony of God’s faithfulness and favour towards him (Gen 46-47).

The bigger picture to this already pretty big picture, which I had never quite realized before was, through forgiving his brothers, Joseph saved the future of Israel (Gen 50:15-21). Simply by giving his burdens to God and being obedient, he was able to preserve what would become the nation of Israel and the bloodline that Jesus was born into. Joseph suffered greatly but his reward was so much greater than his pain. The bigger picture was more magnificently crafted than the plan for evil against him. God allowed the bad in order to form Joseph into the mature, forgiving and obedient servant that he needed to be to save Israel. God wasn’t punishing him nor was He just being cruel because He could. He saw the future; He knew Joseph’s heart and He chose him to save Israel.

Moses and the people of Israel also went through a similar thing in Exodus. While Moses had a more delicate upbringing, Israel was the one suffering this time (Ex 2:1-11). They were now slaves in Egypt and Moses was raised in luxury until that one faithful day where his anger gets the best of him and he had to flee his home (Ex 2:12-15). Little did Israel know; they were waiting for their escape plan to grow and mature into the leader they needed. What would have been the outcome if God didn’t prepare them both for their journey ahead? Neither party could see what God was doing, the Israelites complained the whole time and Moses doubted that he was capable for the job. Despite, their limited perspective, God could see around every corner and grant them favour at every obstacle. In the bigger picture, their pain was to secure the future of the next generation of God’s chosen people.  

Reading these examples, you can clearly see how calculated and caring God is. Unfortunately, it is still really hard to accept that you will have to go through trials, no matter how good the outcome sounds. Being at rock bottom never gets easy and boy is it hard to climb out of. Now that I have the perspective of my present, which is the future of younger me, I can see why God allowed me to go through the things that I did. Everything that I’ve lacked, God placed it in my heart to give to everyone else. I value love, loyalty and kindness so much because I know what it’s like to hope every day to experience it. I want to be the things that I didn’t have because I know they’re people who wish they had those things too. I’m not entirely sure what plans God has for the anxious overthinker part; I’m still working on changing how I view the way my brain works. I get very frustrated with myself because I care so much about everything, I get so stuck if I can’t change something or figure out a problem. Something I have been asking myself recently though is, what if we lived in a world full of nonchalant people? Who would care about the small things? Who would be the change in the world? I care a lot, I think a lot, I love hard and pay attention to every detail because for whatever plan God has for my life, that’s who He needs me to be. It definitely took a while to be able to see that perspective, especially, considering that I was just a child and becoming an ‘adult’ doesn’t magically mature your perspective. It also takes so much humility to be ok with letting God shape you and that’s a place you might have to go through a trial or two to reach as well.

It’s worth noting that in both Moses and Joseph’s cases, their trials and the things God asked of them, weren’t solely about them. God was using them for something so much greater than their individual stories. Now, you may not have been sold into slavery but your feelings are just as important as Joseph and the Israelite’s. To belittle yourself and the things you had to face is to belittle God’s precise plan for your life. Whatever you went through was hard and it’s ok to feel hurt but that’s when you trust God to be your eyes and ears around the twists and bends. It’s always easier said than done but remember God is gentle with us. He created us, so, He knows very well how we let our doubt and fear get in the way. He’d never be angry at us for being human but He would love for us to learn to trust Him despite how hard it is. Whenever you feel like it’s getting too hard, come back to these stories and remind yourself that God is always plotting and planning on your behalf.

Just a girl and her camera