How are we to live our lives in times such as these ?  As we see and often experience all the evils of today’s world, it is so easy to become depressed and hopeless – UNLESS……..   Today’s Readings provide God’s incredible solution for facing whatever we are experiencing in our lives.  He is with us every step of the way in our sanctification journey toward heaven.

Our first reading from the 46th chapter of Genesis details the conclusion of the well know story of Joseph’s life – a life of unjust, cruel circumstances followed years later with unimaginable joy.  It provides us the hope that even when evil seems to prevail, God is still firmly in control.  The trials that Joseph had endured from the hand of his brothers and Pharaoh’s dungeon would certainly have given him understandable despair.  The kind of despair that so many in our time are experiencing.  However, as we see so clearly in Joseph’s story, God was with him every step of the journey – even when things made no sense, when things were totally broken and hopeless.  His life  serves as a strong example for us all that God is indeed with us and His plans are always better than anything that we could hope for or imagine.  We can confidently trust God through all earthly challenges !

But as with everything else in God’s Word, there are multiple meanings to be found in  Joseph’s story.  Beyond God’s never failing presence in our lives, we also see an unmistakable messages of forgiveness and enduring love.  Joseph not only totally forgave his brothers for their evil intents, but he chose to shower them with love and compassion.  Such a supernatural response can only come from God Himself, a gift available to each of us as we face the burdens of our life, Psalm 37 follows this story today with an exclamation point.  We are directed to TRUST in the Lord and to take delight in Him.  Even in these troubled times, we know that God is indeed watching over us and has promised us with the enduring hope of spending eternity with Him.  He will never forsake us or leave us.  He is our refuge – in the face of any and all evil.

Our Gospel for today provides us with clear instructions as to how we are to deal with our fallen world.  In chapter 10 of Mathew’s book, we see Jesus sending out his 12 disciples (and each of us) into a fallen world. He sent them out as sheep in the midst of wolves – (sounds very much like the world that we are facing).  They were instructed to beware of evil men who would do all kinds of evil.   Brothers, even in the churches, who would betray them.  Jesus explained that people will hate them (and us) for simply following Him.  So in the  midst of all this evil, all this persecution, how did Jesus tell them to respond?  He simply called them to be witnesses for God.  They (and we) are to bravely confront evil, knowing that God is truly with us.  He will give us the words to speak and the incredible power to endure, to use our lives as a sacrifice to point others to Jesus.

These Readings were not randomly selected by chance !  They were hand selected by our loving Father to lead us confidently today through the ugliness of a world that can so easily leave us in despair.   We need to simply TRUST Him and seek to share His love with all those He has placed in our lives. 

Dear Heavenly Father, we look to you as our only hope.  We pray that you will use each of us to effectively live out a Christ centered  life.  We thank you for your never-ending hand in all the details of our lives and we look to you to open our hearts to your loving will.    In the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen