Just Thinking

I just finished almost 2 hours of geometry tutoring for a high school freshman, and it got me to thinking.  Dangerous, right?  (I can hear you all laughing out loud...I hear it.)  What is the purpose?  Truly, I hadn't done any geometry since I was a sophomore in high school.  And, yes, that was a lonnnnnnnnnnng time ago.  I may have touched on some of it in college calculus, but I don't even remember it.  So, what's the purpose?

I know this doesn't sound like it has anything to do with living Life with Jesus, but follow me here.  Humor me, will you?

So many things we do in life often get us to thinking, "What's the purpose?"  Certainly, I have had no occasion to use my geometry skills (until today) for over 20 years.  So, was taking geometry a waste?  Knowing what I know now, I'd have to say, "No!"  Now you're thinking, "What?"

Sure, I've never had to sit down and write out the Pythagorean theorem or determine the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle in over 20 years, but geometry did help me think outside of the box.  It helped me see things in a different light than what I was used to or at what my brain was best.  Even though as a sophomore I know I could never see any benefit in my future from taking geometry, I now see that it, like so many other things in our lives help us in indirect ways.  It may take us years to see it, but so much of what we do in life or what we go through in life really does help us.

Consider the life of Joseph that we begin to read about in Genesis 37.  He was the most loved son of his father, Jacob, and because of this, his brothers didn't like him much.  He was a good man, though a little arrogant at times.  God had given him an awesome dream, and Joseph knew he was going to be great.  Yet, as we continue reading his story, I'm wondering if Joseph ever considered if what he had to do and what he had to go through could really serve any good purpose?

So, we continue on with his story in condensed form.  All of Joseph's brothers but his eldest, Reuben, wanted to kill him.  So instead of kill him, they threw him into a pit and then sold him to some Ishmaelites.  They faked his death and told their father that he had been killed by a wild animal.  The Ishmaelites then sold Joseph to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, in Egypt.  Then Potiphar's wife accused him of rape because she liked him, and he didn't want to have anything to do with her.  Joseph was then thrown into prison.  I wonder what Joseph was thinking?  After the prison, however, he found himself in the palace of Pharaoh.

So Joseph went from being his father's pet, to the pit, to Potiphar's house as a slave, to prison, to the palace.  If I would have been Joseph, I know I would have been thinking, "Really? Is this necessary?"  Joseph had been in Egypt for 13 years before he stood before Pharaoh and became 2nd in command of all of Egypt.  As tough as the pit, Potiphar's house, and prison must have been, it prepared him for what he would do in the palace.  Surely there must have been times when Joseph thought, "What's the point?  I'm never going to be great."

I can't tell you the whole story of Joseph with all of the great points and lessons to be learned through it, but you can read it yourself in Genesis 37-Genesis 45.  You really should read it.  I pray it will give you hope.  I pray it will help you see that so many things in life that seem to have no point at all will lead to something much greater.  It's really not about what you're doing but about how you do it.  You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little; I will put you in charge of much.  Matthew 25:21