For harm or for good.

"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good." - Genesis 50.20

I seriously love this verse. It's what Joseph says to his brothers after they had sold him into slavery and he ended up in prison for years. Even through a course of events that appear to have been governed by mans evil, Joseph can still say 'God intended it for good.' I remember hearing a talk by Simon Walker on this a few years ago. He said how this was an example of how God is always sovereign and sometimes the way God gets His people where He wants them to be is through bad circumstances. For some reason i never forgot this talk and thought about it for ages at the time. There is a similar example in Acts - the disciples were persecuted and therefore had to spread out to different regions - but because of this it enabled the gospel to be spread to different regions too. I just think it's amazing that God is so in charge of things, that He actually lets these bad things happen, cos that is the very way He intends to bring about good. It also makes me feel reassured that God will use whatever means are necessary, good or bad, to get His people where He wants them to be, for His greater good. Man can never outbeat Him. He is always ultimately in charge. Phew.