Excerpt from The Spontaneous You
by Norman Grubb

“It was not you who sent me here, but God.” –Genesis 45:8

Everything that comes to us comes from God–what we call evil as well as the good. God, of course, is not the cause of evil, but deliberately directs everything for good ends. The Bible uses strong terms of “God sending” the unpleasant as well as the pleasant, and sending is a positive word, not just a passive permission (for many talk of the “permissive” will of God).

Peter in his first speech after Pentecost said that they had taken and crucified Jesus “through the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” No mistaking that. God determined that wicked men should do what they purposed to do and it would really fulfill his purpose–which was to save the people doing it! Such is God!
Joseph said that by his brethren selling him into slavery, God “sent me before you to preserve life…You thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good.”

Whatever happens, we say, “All right, God, You sent this. It may tear me apart to say so, but I say so.” From there the next step is easier: “God, this has some purpose outside of me to meet the need of others. Just show me what.”

The important fact to recognize is that God has only one aim in His present dealings with our world–to get all of us who will respond to Him off the wrong road on to the right. It was said of Jesus “that the world through him might be saved.”

—The Spontaneous You