On the third day, Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God: If you are honest men, let one of your brothers stay here in prison, while the rest of you go and take grain back for your starving households. But you must bring your youngest brother to me, so that your words may be verified and that you may not die.” This they proceeded to do. They said to one another, “Surely we are being punished because of our brother. We saw how distressed he was when he pleaded with us for his life, but we would not listen; that’s why this distress has come on us.” Reuben replied, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you wouldn’t listen! Now we must give an accounting for his blood.” They did not realize that Joseph could understand them, since he was using an interpreter. He turned away from them and began to weep, but then came back and spoke to them again. He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes. Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man’s silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey. After this was done for them, they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left. At the place where they stopped for the night one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey, and he saw his silver in the mouth of his sack. “My silver has been returned,” he said to his brothers. “Here it is in my sack.” Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”

—Genesis 42:18-28 (TNIV)

Here is an instructive passage that smacks of real life. It reminds us that having faith in God’s good love and providence for us is sometimes, if not often, difficult. Joseph’s brothers had sold him into slavery and now were standing in front of him unawares. Joseph had demanded that they bring their youngest brother, Benjamin, to see him. But since they did not recognize Joseph, they surely would have felt caught between a rock and a hard spot since their father, Jacob, had insisted that the boy stay with him instead of traveling to Egypt. As the passage indicates, Joseph’s brothers were beginning to realize that the chickens were coming home to roost.

To make matters worse, on their way back to fetch Benjamin, the brothers discovered that the silver they used to pay for the grain Joseph had sold them was now back in their possession. They did not know that Joseph had instructed it be returned to them and so they naturally believed that they would be accused of theft. Uh oh. Today’s passage concludes with the poignant statement that “their hearts sank” and they trembled with fear. They were terrified over their fate as well as the fate of their two brothers, Benjamin and Simeon. The knowledge of the evil they had committed against Joseph clearly intensified their fear just like it does to us when we consider the evil we have committed in our lives.

What can we learn from this? Like Joseph’s brothers, we can often get consumed by the circumstances of life. Because we are finite and limited, we do not have a panoramic and complete knowledge of all that is going on around us. Neither do we know what the future holds the way God does. Consequently, we, like Joseph’s brothers, can fall into despair when the events of life sometimes beat us down. Because we don’t have the big picture of life, we must sometimes walk in darkness. We don’t like doing that, of course, because when that happens we lose control and that frightens us. I suspect that is why we enjoy “Monday morning quarterbacking” and engaging in 20-20 hindsight so much. Once we have a clearer picture of all the variables in our lives that hindsight offers us, it is easier for us to second-guess our courses of action. But, of course, that is not how real life works. We are called to live in the here and now and to work with an incomplete knowledge of people and events. We never will have the Big Picture of life’s events and people’s hearts that God has.

But this is not the end of the story. Scripture reminds us of our human condition, not to throw us into despair but to help us remember that we are creatures, not the Creator. We know this story of Joseph and his brothers will have a happy ending, just as we know that God used the evil of Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery for good. The story of Scripture calls for us to respond to God’s wondrous love for us in faith, even (or perhaps especially) in life’s darkest moments when that love is hard or almost impossible for us to see or comprehend. Joseph’s brothers’ hearts would not have sunk nor would they have trembled in fear had they known the outcome of the story. Neither should our hearts tremble in fear when we know the ultimate outcome of the story of our life when we have faith in God’s great love for us manifested in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Faith is the key to living a life that is joyous and we can bolster our faith in a couple of ways. First, we should read Scripture to see how God’s faithfulness to his broken creatures plays itself out in history. The crowning moment occurs when we read about Jesus’ death and resurrection. In that story we are reminded that we have a God who loves us enough that he willingly took on our flesh and in Jesus Christ bore the terrible punishment for our sins so that we might have an opportunity to be reconciled to God and live with him forever. In Scripture we also read about the faith of others who can serve as good examples for us. Abraham, Joseph, the prophets, Ruth, Naomi, Mary, Peter, and Paul (among others) all had faith that is worth our attention. From them we learn that God rewards our faith, but not necessarily in ways that the world defines rewards.

Likewise, we can learn to live life together as Christ’s Body so that we can draw on each other and help each other when life goes south. God knows we need the human touch and has blessed us with Christian fellowship to help sustain us in the living of our days.

As you live your life, will you choose to live it with faith or without? If you choose the latter, you choose to go it alone and you will see sooner or later that that just doesn’t work. If you choose the former, you will not be immune from the hurts and heartaches of life, but you will discover that you have a power to help you persevere and to transcend your hurts and fears. You will have this power because your faith will allow God’s Holy Spirit to work in and through you to help you become the creature he calls you to be.

The darkness you sometimes encounter in this life may not have a happy ending, at least as the world defines happy endings, but you will be guaranteed that your life will have one. Abraham knew it. Joseph knew it. Mary knew it. Paul knew it. Peter knew it. So have countless other Christians. So can you. Choose to walk in faith. Choose to believe God loves you and knows what is best for you, despite appearances sometimes to the contrary. Scripture and the lives of countless Christian saints testify to this truth. So does God’s Spirit. May you be blessed with faith in Jesus Christ that will sustain you in the living of your days.