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The “Everything is against ME!” Blues
Sermon 10
November 29, 2009
“You know it's going to be a bad day when you wake up in a hospital in traction and your insurance agent tells you that your accident policy covers falling off the roof, but not hitting the ground.” Do you think that you’re having a bad day…a bad life? Are you singing the “Everything is against me” blues?
Did you make some big blunders in the stock market? June 2005 one stock broker had a really bad day when she mistakenly bought $251 million worth of shares with a mis-stroke of her computer. Her company had a paper loss of more than $12 million, and she had to look for a new job. Now that’s a bad day!
Previously, Joseph as a seventeen year old was sold as a slave into Egypt by his ten brothers who then lie to his father, Jacob, saying a wild beast has killed Joseph. In Egypt Joseph is faithful to God but was falsely accused by Mrs. Potiphar of rape and is thrown into a dungeon. There he meets Pharaoh’s butler and baker. They have some heavy dreams which Joseph accurately interprets, asking the butler to remember him when he’s pardoned and get him out of the dungeon. But he forgets Joseph until Pharaoh has two very bad dreams that Joseph interprets which are about seven years of great plenty followed by seven years of a horrible famine. Because Pharaoh realizes God’s hand is on Joseph, he makes him second ruler in all Egypt. The famine also hits Canaan, home of – you guessed it – Joseph’s ten brothers who now come to Egypt to find food. Twenty-two years have passed. They meet Joseph who recognizes them but they don’t recognize him. He puts one of them in jail and tells them that if they want more food in the future, they have to bring his brother, Benjamin down to Egypt with them (he’s trying to make sure that Benjamin is alive and well). But neither they, nor his father Jacob, knows that this is really Joseph. The brothers have just gotten home and are now sharing all of this with Dad. That’s where we pick up the story, Genesis 42:29 (p. 33).
We find Jacob singing The “Everything is against me” blues. Before we’re too hard on Jacob, most of us must admit that we’ve been there or maybe we’re still there.
In the Joseph narrative three different responses to adversity are seen. For Joseph, adversity was ultimately from the hand of a loving Heavenly Father, Who was always near in his affliction. For Joseph’s brothers, adversity was punishment from an angry God, who was getting even with them for their sin. For Jacob, adversity was no more than the fickle hand of fate or worse, the stupidity of his sons that made his life miserable.
Recently, I stumbled on a powerful quote by John MacArthur, “The real challenge of Christian living is not to eliminate every uncomfortable circumstance from your life, but to trust the infinite, holy, sovereign, and powerful God in the midst of every situation.” How do you see trials? Do you tend to sing the “Everything is against me” blues? James Montgomery Boice suggests Jacob would have twisted that familiar children’s song, “Jesus loves me” to be, “No one loves me this I know, My misfortunes tell me so.” Sometimes we learn best from a bad example on how not to respond. While Joseph is a model for how to handle adversity, Jacob is the opposite. If you’re taking notes…
1. We must be careful not to look at life’s inevitable trials from the wrong side of Heaven. There are times when things seem to be against you. Remember Jacob does not know what we know. He thinks Joseph is dead. He doesn’t know that he’s alive and is now in the number two spot in Egypt, that he's in charge of the plan to distribute grain during the famine.
When the famine hits Canaan, Jacob sends his ten other sons (minus Benjamin) to Egypt to buy grain. They stood before Joseph and don’t recognize him, though he recognizes them. He treats them harshly, accusing them of being spies, and put Simeon in prison until the others could return with their younger brother, Benjamin, to prove their honesty. Joseph is testing his brothers to see where their hearts were at and to bring them to repentance.
On the journey home, one brother opens his sack to feed his donkey and discovered that the money he’d used to pay for the grain has been returned. All the brothers fear that they will be accused of stealing when they go back to get Simeon out of jail and to buy more grain. For the first time, they also recognize God's hand in their lives and exclaimed, "What is this that God has done to us?"
Returning home, they report everything to Jacob. As they finished their story and empty their sacks, they discover, to their horror, that not just one, but each man's money, had been returned. It's at this point that Jacob wailed his own version of Murphy's Law: “Everything is against me.”
One of the spoof advertisements Garrison Keillor used to do on his "Prairie Home Companion" radio show was, the "Worst Case Scenario." It's a telephone service where you can call a pessimist named Ralph and he will tell you the worst that can happen to your proposed plans.
In one segment, a guy calls Ralph to ask what the worst case scenario will be if he takes his wife to the movies that night. Ralph replies, "You want the worst case scenario? Your wife will ask you to go out to the concession stand and get her something to drink. On the way back to your seat, you'll trip over someone's feet and spill your drinks on the people in the row in front of you. They'll sue you for all you're worth. You'll lose your house and car and job. Your wife will divorce you and take the kids with her. You'll start drinking and end up on skid row." The caller says, "Hey, thanks! I'd never thought about it that way. I guess I'll stay home tonight."
When the sons get home and give their report, it’s as if Jacob has called "Worst Case Scenario" and talked to Ralph who said, "Yep, Joseph is dead, Simeon is dead, and Benjamin will die, too!" “Everything is against me.”
Frequently, we’re just like Jacob, complaining “Everything is against us” and we’re just as laughable. Circumstances fail to treat us right, someone says something to us that is less than complimentary, we’re faced by a difficult decision – and suddenly we feel that nothing has ever gone right for us in our entire lives, and we start throwing a huge pity party.
In a fallen world there are some things that are against the child of God. Until the day that our Lord either returns or calls us Home, we’ll face trials and temptations. Job was right, we are “born to trouble” (Job 5:7).
Jacob has the same problem that we do. He’s looking at life horizontally, rather than vertically. He only sees his dilemmas from a human point of view. Too often we leave God out of the picture until our back is against the wall. Only then do we capitulate to a vertical perspective and sometimes not even then.
While God is resurrecting these ten brothers’ comatose consciences, I wonder if God is touching on an area that many of us need to have touched. We not only tend to be horizontal, we cling to the same things Jacob does. And we will until the Lord in His grace unwraps our clenched fingers from them.
Throughout his life Jacob has had conflict because of his clinging to possessions. He stole his brother Esau’s blessing and it nearly cost him his life. He’d fled from his father in-law, Laban’s home, because Laban was jealous of his livestock. Now in verse 36 Jacob is clinging again, “You have deprived me of my children. Joseph is no more and Simeon is no more, and now you want to take Benjamin.”
Our children are not ours! They’re a gift from God. In terms of ultimate priorities, a Christian should be prepared to choose Jesus over family if his family forces the issue. This doesn’t mean that, as a rule, there’s a conflict between our spiritual duties and our familial duties. Sadly, though, too many believers, like Jacob…though we do not have a “family altar,” we worship at the “altar of the family.” When love of parents, children, or spouse is given more commitment than love to God, the one who loves is bound to be disappointed. Love to family members and spouse can be an expression of love to God, but that’s different from the kind of faith in the family found in far too many believers. And that’s Jacob’s issue. His children, specifically Benjamin, have come between him and God. One has to wonder if he has also given Benjamin a coat of many colors too.
This past week did you have a pity party? A few things went wrong and were you thinking, “Everything is against me.” Why is it that we maximize our burdens but minimize our blessings? It’s because, like Jacob, we’re looking at life from the wrong side. We are looking at life’s inevitable trials from the wrong side of Heaven.
2. We must be careful not to allow our distrust in people to cause us to distrust God, “Then Reuben said to his father, ‘You may put both of my sons to death if I do not bring him back to you. Entrust him to my care, and I will bring him back’” (vs. 37). There are some important family dynamics taking place here.
First, Reuben is so over the top that if the situation was not so serious, it would be laughable. If Benjamin is lost, he suggests that Jacob, his two sons’ grandfather, can kill his two sons. What a stupid remark! It’s never going to happen. Reuben has to shoot way over the top because he knows that his father doesn’t trust him. He’s trying to get his Dad’s attention and more importantly, his respect.
Trust and confidence are earned. People, even with the best intentions, will sometimes fail us. Reuben has a poor track record. He means well but he’s unstable. A lot of people mean well. But when your back is against the wall, Reuben is not the one you count on. Remember, he violated his father’s bed by sleeping with his step mother and Jacob’s concubine, Bilhah (Gen. 35:22). When we study Jacob’s blessings on his sons, we’ll see Jacob’s lack of confidence in Reuben reiterated again in Genesis 49:4.
Basically, Jacob blows him off. Respect must be earned. One of the greatest abilities is dependability. Reuben doesn’t have it. If the ones that you love, either your children or parents or employees have lost respect for you and don’t have confidence in you, don’t force it – instead by a changed life – prove that you can be trusted. Give them reason to have respect and confidence in you. Sadly, we have no record that Reuben ever did that.
Because Jacob had no confidence in Reuben, though they needed more food, he rejected this proposal without thinking. All of us are periodically going to have to trust individuals that make us feel a bit uncomfortable. Our confidence though really is not in them but in God.
3. We must be careful not to accept sinful habits as “who we just are.” A laboratory rabbit one day managed to break free from the laboratory where he’d been born and brought up. As he scurried away from the fencing of the compound, he felt grass under his little feet and saw the dawn breaking for the first time in his life. "Wow, this is great," he thought. It wasn't long before he came to a hedge and after squeezing under it he saw a wonderful sight - lots and lots of other bunny rabbits, all free and nibbling at the lush grass. "Hey," he called out. "I'm a rabbit from the laboratory and I've just escaped. Are you wild rabbits?"
"Yes. Come and join us," they cried. So our little friend hops over to them and starts eating the grass. It tasted so good. "What else do you wild rabbits do?" he asked. "Well," one of them said. "You see that field there? It's got carrots growing in it. We dig them up and eat them." This, he couldn't resist and he spent the next hour eating the most succulent carrots. They were wonderful. Later, he asked them again, "What else do you do?"
"You see that field there? It's got lettuce growing in it. We eat that as well." The lettuce tasted just as good and he returned a while later completely full. "It's fantastic out here in the world" he told them.
"So are you going to live with us then?" one of them asked.
"I'm sorry, I had a great time but I can't." The wild rabbits all stared at him, a bit surprised. "Why? We thought you liked it here."
"I do," our friend replied. "But I gotta get back to the lab. I'm just dying for a cigarette." We must be careful not to accept sinful habits as “who we just are.”
Sydney J. Harris was right, “Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better.” The older we are, the more we get entrenched in our ways – and unfortunately start proving a cultural fable, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
Jacob’s words sound strikingly familiar. We find very similar ones earlier in the Joseph narrative. In Genesis 37:35 Jacob says, “in mourning will I go down to the grave to my son.” Periodically, we see flickers of change in Jacob. In Genesis 32, after wrestling with the Angel of the Lord, he’s renamed Israel which means “prince with God.” The name Jacob though means schemer. Sadly, for most of his life, he lives out schemer or Jacob rather than Israel and the man that God wants him to be. The bulk of his life he is self-centered, self-serving and self-pitying.
Jacob is of the “we’ve always done it this way” and “don’t confuse me with the facts; my mind is already made up” crowd. And the older we get, often the more resistant we are to growth and change.
There’s hope for Jacob, just as there is hope for each of us. Later we’ll see that even as old man, God really gets a hold of his heart but he wastes so many years just because he gets stuck. He’s content with being a spiritual pygmy when God wants to make him a giant.
4. We must be committed to trusting the God Who is for us. In his book, In the Eye of the Storm, Max Lucado writes, “There is a window in your heart through which you can see God. Once upon a time that window was clear. Your view of God was crisp. You could see God as vividly as you could see a gentle valley or hillside. The glass was clean, the pane unbroken. You knew God. You knew how He worked. You knew what He wanted you to do. No surprises. Nothing unexpected. You knew that God had a will, and you continually discovered what it was. Then suddenly, the window cracked. A pebble broke the window. A pebble of pain. Perhaps the stone struck when you were a child and a parent left home—forever. Maybe the rock hit in adolescence when your heart was broken. Maybe you made it into adulthood before the window was cracked. But then the pebble came.
Was it a phone call? "We have your daughter at the station, you'd better come down here." Was it a letter on the kitchen table? "I've left. Don't try to reach me. Don't try to call me. It's over. I just don't love you anymore." Was it a diagnosis from the doctor? "I'm afraid our news is not very good."
Was it a telegram? "We regret to inform you that your son is missing in action."
What happens in times like these is we build thick walls. We isolate ourselves. We hide. We want to protect ourselves from hurting again. But in shutting out the pain, we also shut out the chance to experience God's healing grace…and we stop trusting God. We want to believe that He is good but in our heart of hearts, we really don’t. That was Jacob.
John Sterner, in his book, Growing through Mid-Life Crisis, includes the following anecdote that hits close to home for many of us: “As I get into middle age, I realize that I have not kept all of Jesus’ requirements or even any completely. I remember that little old lady…in a prayer meeting singing, ‘I surrender some,’ because she wanted to be honest with God. At times my honest song would be, ‘I don’t surrender a thing tonight, and I haven’t for a long time; but keep hanging in there, God, and I just might.”
“I surrender some…I don’t surrender a thing tonight…” those statements, if we’re honest, hit closer to home than we want to admit. They describe Jacob. He wants to be a man of faith. He wants to trust God, but not today. And everyone in his family is affected because of his stubborn, unrelenting resistance. They’re starving because he refuses to trust God.
There’s more of Jacob in most of us than we want to admit. Most of the time we learn from watching someone successful but sometimes we learn from seeing how NOT to do something. Jacob is an example of how NOT to trust God. He’s a model of unLeadership. Taken as a whole, we can suggest principles which govern Jacob’s actions at this point in his life. I don’t recommend them to anyone. Let me spell them out in order to stimulate a re-appraisal of our own leadership style. Let’s dub them Jacob’s Seven Laws of unLeadership.
1) Whatever problems arise today are best dealt with tomorrow. Jacob delayed acting decisively on the issue of sending Benjamin to Egypt until the situation reached crisis proportions. Given enough time anything could happen, Jacob reasoned. He’s willing to wait indefinitely on this slim hope.
2) No problem can possibly be as bad as it seems. If the first principle betrays a “manana mentality,” the second is the effort to minimize the problem to the point that it hardly seems worth giving time to its solution. If the problem is not serious, then it can be put off indefinitely.
3) Honesty is not the best policy. Jacob still had a lot of the old deceiver in him. He believed good communication only causes problems. He thought that the less others knew about him, the better off he and his family were. Judah was thus rebuked for telling Joseph any facts about the family. Many Christians today operate on this same principle. They think that keeping others from knowing them well avoids problems, but they, like Jacob, are desperately misled. Sin loves secrecy and darkness, while righteousness loves the light (John 3:19-21).
4) Always look out for number one. Jacob’s leadership was consistently exercised in the light of his own personal interests. It was Judah who urged his father to think of others rather than himself (vs. 3). No leader is harder to follow than the one who seeks only his own interests. Conversely, no leader is easier to follow than the one who seeks the best interests of those he leads.
5) As much as is possible, see to it that others receive the blame for any problems. Jacob sought to place the responsibility on Judah and his brothers because they told the truth. A good leader is one who is willing to accept the responsibility for his mistakes.
6) If our efforts to solve a problem fail, try to manipulate. Jacob hoped that his presents, along with double payment, would help achieve his desired ends. He’s trying to manipulate the situation, rather than just being up front about what happened. Many times, rather than problem-solve, we too attempt to manipulate. We scheme and connive. We may pay our children for behaving as they should or offer to pay whatever it takes to solve their problems. Manipulation never solves problems, while it causes many more.
7) When all else fails, trust God. It is no accident that Jacob mentions God last. It never seemed to occur to him as it did to Joseph that God was active in all of his troubles. His wish that God would be with his sons is only a last ditch effort when it should have been his first line of defense. “Foxhole religion” is not new, and it did not cease with Jacob.
Conclusion: Jacob thinks that no one has it as bad as he does. He’s got a bad case of The “Everything is against me!” Blues. How about us? Do we just see our problems, or we see the God behind our troubles? As we close, let me suggest three choices that will help us beat The “Everything is against me!” Blues.
* Put God back into the equation. You have to stop and ask yourself, "Is God in this or not? He is! Then, "Is God for me or against me?" He's for me! "Am I going to believe, then, that God is and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him?" (Heb. 11:6) You have to make the deliberate choice to trust in the unseen God.
* Put your situation into historical perspective. View your situation in light of God's dealings with His people in the Bible and in church history. That helps me to see that "I am not the last of God's prophets left, and they're seeking my life." Others have suffered and endured in the cause of Christ before me. Reading biographies of Martin Luther, Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and others who have overcome severe hardships helps me to trust God in my puny trials.
* Put down selfish, unbelieving thoughts. You can't allow yourself the luxury of a pity party. You can't surround yourself with reasons why everything is against you so that you have excuses for not believing God. You can trust God! You can take unbelieving thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ! When things seem to be against you, you can trust in the God Who is for you! But you must choose to!
Let me close this morning with a story by Ruth Peterson who admits that she suffered from The “Everything is against me!” Blues and yet was given a whole new perspective on life. She writes:
She was six years old when I first met her on the beach near where I live. I drive to this beach, a distance of three or four miles, whenever the world begins to close in on me. She was building a sandcastle or something and looked up, her eyes as blue as the sea.
"Hello," she said. I answered with a nod, not really in the mood to bother with a small child. "I'm building," she said. "I see that. What is it?" I asked, not caring.
"Oh, I don't know, I just like the feel of sand." That sounds good, I thought, and slipped off my shoes. A sandpiper glided by.
"That's a joy," the child said.
"It's a what?"
"It's a joy. My mama says sandpipers come to bring us joy." The bird went gliding down the beach.
"Good-bye joy," I muttered to myself, "hello pain," and turned to walk on. I was depressed; my life seemed completely out of balance. "What's your name?" She wouldn't give up.
"Ruth," I answered. "I'm Ruth Peterson."
"Mine's Wendy... I'm six."
“Hi, Wendy."
She giggled. "You're funny," she said. In spite of my gloom I laughed too and walked on. Her musical giggle followed me.
“Come again, Mrs. P," she called. "We'll have another happy day." The days and weeks that followed belong to others: a group of unruly Boy Scouts, PTA meetings, an ailing mother. The sun was shining one morning as I took my hands out of the dishwater. "I need a sandpiper," I said to myself, gathering up my coat. The ever-changing balm of the seashore awaited me. The breeze was chilly, but I strode along, trying to recapture the serenity I needed. I had forgotten the child and was startled when she appeared.
"Hello, Mrs. P," she said. "Do you want to play?"
"What did you have in mind?" I asked, with a twinge of annoyance.
"I don't know, you say."
"How about charades?" I asked sarcastically.
The tinkling laughter burst forth again. "I don't know what that is."
"Then let's just walk." Looking at her, I noticed the delicate fairness of her face. "Where do you live?" I asked.
"Over there." She pointed toward a row of summer cottages. Strange, I thought, in winter. "Where do you go to school?"
"I don't go to school. Mommy says we're on vacation." She chattered little girl talk as we strolled up the beach, but my mind was on other things. When I left for home, Wendy said it had been a happy day. Feeling surprisingly better, I smiled at her and agreed.
Three weeks later, I rushed to my beach in a state of near panic. I was in no mood to even greet Wendy. I thought I saw her mother on the porch and felt like demanding she keep her child at home. "Look, if you don't mind," I said crossly when Wendy caught up with me, "I'd rather be alone today." She seemed unusually pale and out of breath. "Why?" she asked.
I turned to her and shouted, "Because my mother died!" and thought why was I saying this to a little child?
“Oh," she said quietly, "then this is a bad day."
"Yes," I said, "and yesterday and the day before and-oh, go away!"
"Did it hurt?” she inquired.
"Did what hurt?" I was exasperated with her, with myself.
"When she died?"
"Of course it hurt!!!!" I snapped, misunderstanding, wrapped up in myself. I strode off. A month or so after that, when I next went to the beach, she wasn't there. Feeling guilty, ashamed and admitting to myself I missed her, I went up to the cottage after my walk and knocked at the door. A drawn looking young woman with honey-colored hair opened the door. "Hello," I said. "I'm Ruth Peterson. I missed your little girl today and wondered where she was."
"Oh yes, Mrs. Peterson, please come in. Wendy spoke of you so much. I'm afraid I allowed her to bother you. If she was a nuisance, please, accept my apologies."
"Not at all--she's a delightful child," I said, suddenly realizing that I meant it. "Where is she?"
"Wendy died last week, Mrs. Peterson. She had leukemia. Maybe she didn't tell you."
Struck dumb, I groped for a chair. My breath caught. "She loved this beach; so when she asked to come, we couldn't say no. She seemed so much better here and had a lot of what she called happy days. But the last few weeks, she declined rapidly..." her voice faltered. "She left something for you…if only I can find it. Could you wait a moment while I look?"
I nodded stupidly, my mind racing for something, anything, to say to this lovely young woman. She handed me a smeared envelope, with MRS. P printed in bold, childish letters. Inside was a drawing in bright crayon hues-a yellow beach, a blue sea, and a brown bird. Underneath was carefully printed: A SANDPIPER TO BRING YOU JOY.
Tears welled up in my eyes, and a heart that had almost forgotten to love opened wide. I took Wendy's mother in my arms. "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," I muttered over and over, and we wept together.
The precious little picture is framed now and hangs in my study. Six words--one for each year of her life--that speak to me of harmony, courage, undemanding love. A gift from a child with sea-blue eyes and hair the color of sand -- who taught me the gift of love.
My friend, God does not want us to succumb to The “Everything is against me!” Blues. He wants us to see Him…He wants us to see life through the eyes of child like faith. He loves us and He’s in control but we must choose to trust Him! Like Jacob…like Joseph, we really do choose what we see. Will you choose to see Him today and trust Him?
