When all Things Seem Against You

Have you ever felt that everything in life has turned against you? Maybe you feel like the person I read about a few days ago. “A skydiver is enjoying his free-fall, when he realizes that he has reached the altitude where he must open his parachute, he pulls the ripcord, but nothing happens. “No problem,” he says to himself, “I still have my emergency chute.” So he pulls the ripcord on his emergency parachute, and once again, nothing happens. Now the man begins to panic. “What am I going to do?” He thinks. “I’m a goner.” Just then, he sees a man flying up from the earth toward him. He can’t figure out where this man is coming from or what he’s doing, but he says to himself, “I hope he can help me. If he can’t, then I’m in real trouble.” When the man gets close enough to him, the skydiver cups his hands and shouts, “Hey, do you know anything about parachutes?” The man coming up cups his hands and yells back, “No! Do you know anything about gas stoves?” While humorous, many people feel as if they are having the same experience. This is exactly how Jacob felt when he declared in Genesis 42:36, “All these things are against me.” To this patriarch it seemed as if he was losing everything. How else is one to feel when he has lost a son at the hands of a wild beast, he is in the midst of a famine, and threatened with the loss of other family members to slavery in Egypt. However, he realized later that God was working in the midst of his apparent crisis. Instead of death there was life, in the place of famine there was a feast, and rather than being slaves his sons experienced freedom. This truth is one that all of us must learn. Although we may not understand everything we face in life, God never lets us face it alone. Somewhere in the background He is working to bring us through. That means when all things seem against you, knowing that God is in control and standing near allows you in the midst of darkness to close your eyes and rest in peace.