God Will Use This for Good: Surviving the Mess of Life by Lucado Max

Author:Lucado, Max [Lucado, Max]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2013-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

Keep Calm and Make a Plan

We can’t always see what God is doing.

But can’t we assume he is up to something good? Joseph faced a calamity of a global scale. It had been two years since the last drop of rain. No rain meant no farming. No farming meant no food.

Yet Joseph assumed God was in the crisis.

Then he faced the crisis with a plan. He collected grain during the good years and redistributed it in the bad. When the people ran out of food, he gave it to them in exchange for money, livestock, and property. After he stabilized the economy, he gave the people a lesson in money management. “Give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and use the rest for farming and eating” (Gen. 47:24, author’s paraphrase).

The plan could fit on an index card. “Save for seven years. Distribute for seven years. Manage carefully.” Could his response have been simpler?

Could it have been more boring?

Some flamboyance would have been nice. A little bit of the Red Sea opening, Jericho’s walls tumbling, or was-dead Lazarus walking. A dramatic crisis requires a dramatic response, right? Not always.

We equate spirituality with high drama: Paul raising the dead, Peter healing the sick. Yet for every Paul and Peter, there are a dozen Josephs. Men and women blessed with skills of administration. Steady hands through whom God saves people. Joseph never raised the dead, but he kept people from dying. He never healed the sick, but he kept sickness from spreading. He made a plan and stuck with it. And because he did, the nation survived. He triumphed with a calm, methodical plan.

In the days leading up to the war with Germany, the British government commissioned a series of posters. The idea was to capture encouraging slogans on paper and distribute them about the country. Capital letters in a distinct typeface were used, and a simple two-color format was selected. The only graphic was the crown of King George VI.

The first poster was distributed in September of 1939:

YOUR COURAGE

YOUR CHEERFULNESS

YOUR RESOLUTION

WILL BRING

US VICTORY

Soon thereafter a second poster was produced:

FREEDOM IS

IN PERIL

DEFEND IT

WITH ALL

YOUR MIGHT

These two posters appeared up and down the British countryside. On railroad platforms and in pubs, stores, and restaurants. They were everywhere. A third poster was created yet never distributed. More than 2.5 million copies were printed yet never seen until nearly sixty years later when a bookstore owner in northeast England discovered one in a box of old books he had purchased at an auction. It read:

KEEP

CALM

AND

CARRY

ON

The poster bore the same crown and style of the first two posters. It was never released to the public, however, but was held in reserve for an extreme crisis, such as invasion by Germany. The bookstore owner framed it and hung it on the wall. It became so popular that the bookstore began producing identical images of the original design on coffee mugs, postcards, and posters. Everyone, it seems, appreciated the reminder from another generation to keep calm and carry on.1

Of all the Bible heroes, Joseph is the one most likely to have hung a copy on his office wall.

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