Sometimes our challenges hide the chance to get better

​I received the words below in an early morning email blog post from Seth Godin. I immediately thought of the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. The story is 14 bible chapters long (Genesis 37-50), so I can't begin to capture it all here. But if you're ever stuck at home with too much time on your hands, I'd encourage you to read it.

The gist of the story is Joseph is his dad's favorite kid. His 10 older brothers are a wee bit jealous of that. Then Joseph foolishly shares his dreams with his brothers - dreams declaring Joseph would one day rule over the family. His brothers aren't fans of the dreams and drag their teenage brother into the wilderness and throw him in a pit. But instead of letting him die there, they sell him into slavery. As a slave Joseph earns favor with a high ranking official. He's living the good life. Then the official's wife falsely accuses Joseph of rape, so he's thrown in prison. He interprets two guys dreams accurately in prison, which leads to him getting a chance to accurately interpret the king's dreams. The king is grateful, and suddenly Joseph is the second leading authority figure in all the known world. This puts him in a position to reconcile with his family and save them from a famine.

Phew. That's 14 chapters.....

Here's the thing about stories like Joseph's in the bible. It's easy to look at that them from that 30,000 feet above the earth view. The God view. It's easy to look at two decades of Joseph's life and struggles and conclude the guy had a challenging life, but one day God graciously sprinkled a little God dust on his story and boom - mic drop - happily ever after.

Now, I don't think it's possible to over-recognize God's hand in a story. But, I do think it's possible to under-appreciate the daily choices someone like Joseph makes to make sure he's walking hand in hand with the story God's longing to tell. In other words, I think we're carrying around pockets full of God dust we might not be aware of.

The 30,000 foot view of Joseph's story is 14 bible chapters and 20 years long.

The view you and I need to have of his story is 7,300 days. That's 7,300 days Joseph woke up and had to choose: default mode or move toward better.

No matter what his circumstances were, every day Joseph moved toward better with faith that God was in his story. He moved toward better with integrity and with a belief that making the right choice might not magically change his story, but by habitually moving toward better, he was walking hand in hand with the God who could change it.

No matter how bad those 7,300 days got, Joseph took on each day as an opportunity and not a problem.

We are all kind of there right now. We all have an opportunity to start this day by crumbling beneath the weight of our problems. And depending on who we are - it's possible that's a really heavy weight. But under that weight, there's also the chance to look at those problems and be curious about the opportunities they are hiding.

I know that can sound very Pollyannaish. But it's not really. It's just a message from a guy who's had more than his fair share of chances to look in the rearview mirror at life's problems, and see the opportunities that got weaved out of them. When you experience that, over and over, you eventually get curious about the opportunities in the next problem.

I think that happened to Joseph. I think when his brothers threw him in that pit to die, and he didn't die, I think he gained confidence to keep looking for and moving toward better. And moving toward better eventually became a habit.

Today, every one of us, we will begin or continue a habit of holding back - or moving toward better.

I don't think it's possible to ever give God too much credit when our story ends up in a better place. But I do think it's possible to under-appreciate the opportunity we have, like Joseph, to start this day and the next one with a commitment to moving toward better.