Discovering Destiny (Part 40): The Wrong Turn That Leads To Your Destiny

God can use a wrong turn.

https://youtu.be/cjuKvRFgjaw

Today, we continue our focus on THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, as we learn to maintain our posture of faith after God has revealed His plans for our future.

Key scriptures for this year:

2 Peter 3:18 GNT"But continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever."

Luke 10:20 Mirror"It's time for you to rediscover who you are from Heaven's perspective."

1 John 3:10 Mirror"There is a very visible and vast difference between living one's life from your God identity or from a fallen man's mindset."

Proverbs 25:2 NKJV"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter."

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

Scripture(s) we will study today:

Genesis 37:12-17 NKJV"Then his brothers went to feed their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph, 'Are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.' So he said to him, 'Here I am.' Then he said to him, 'Please go and see if it is well with your brothers and well with the flocks, and bring back word to me.' So he sent him out of the Valley of Hebron, and he went to Shechem. Now a certain man found him, and there he was, wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying, 'What are you seeking?' So he said, 'I am seeking my brothers. Please tell me where they are feeding their flocks.' And the man said, 'They have departed from here, for I heard them say, "Let us go to Dothan."' So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan."

Supporting scriptures:

Psalm 105:17 AMPC"He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold as a servant."

Proverbs 16:9 NLT"We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps."

Psalm 37:23 AMPC"The steps of a [good] man are directed and established by the Lord when He delights in his way [and He busies Himself with his every step]."

Proverbs 3:5-6 AMPC"Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths."

Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT"'My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,' says the Lord. 'And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.'"

Genesis 45:5 NLT"But don't be upset, and don't be angry with yourselves for selling me to this place. It was God who sent me here ahead of you to preserve your lives."

Genesis 50:20 NLT"You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people."

Setting the Stage:

Yesterday, we watched God give Joseph two dreams and zero directions. He showed him the end and hid the road. Today, Joseph takes his first steps down that hidden road, and I want you to see how ordinary it looked. Nobody blew a trumpet. No angel. No voice from heaven. No dream. Just a father with a simple request: "Go check on your brothers and bring me word." Joseph then walked about 50 miles from Hebron to Shechem and found nothing. The brothers were gone. He was wandering in a field, in the wrong place, looking for people who were not there. Then a man he never met, whose name we will never know, pointed him to Dothan.

Now, here is what Joseph did not know. Dothan is where the pit is. The stranger in the field did not point him to safety; he pointed him to the worst day of his life. And that worst day was the gateway to Egypt, to Potiphar's house, to the prison, to Pharaoh's court, and to the very dream God gave him. Everything God showed him at 17 came to pass because a nameless man in a field said one sentence. Here is what I want you to see today. God will send you down a detour that looks like a mistake. It is not.

So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.

1. Destiny Starts With Obedience To Something That Does Not Look Like Destiny.

Look at the assignment. Jacob did not say, "Son, go fulfill your destiny." He said, "Go see if it is well with your brothers and bring back word to me." That is an errand. That is the kind of task you do without thinking about it. But Psalm 105:17 AMPC looks back at that same trip and says, "He sent a man before them, even Joseph." Jacob sent him on an errand, and God sent him on an assignment. Same road. Same 50 miles. Two senders. Joseph could only see one of them. And the only reason God's sending worked is because Joseph obeyed his father's request. If he had refused the errand, he would have missed the assignment.

How this applies to you:

-- The errand of a lifetime usually looks like a normal errand.

-- Joseph obeyed a request that had no glory in it. Go check on the brothers who hate you. Go walk 50 miles to see about some sheep. He did not negotiate. He did not ask what was in it for him. Destiny is discovered by people who say yes to small things because God is always working, even when we don’t realize it.

-- We serve a God who hides big assignments inside small instructions. He does this on purpose. If God labeled every step "this one is important," you would only obey the important ones.

-- Your obedience to the person in front of you is often your obedience to God. Jacob was the voice Joseph could hear. God was the voice behind the voice.

-- Faith begins where the will of God is known, and sometimes the will of God shows up as "go check on your brothers." If you are faithful to simply do the thing in front of you, over time, you will realize that God connected it to the thing ahead of you.

2. God Will Use Other People To Push You Toward Your Destiny.

Count the hands on Joseph in this chapter. Jacob's hand sent him out of Hebron. The stranger's hand pointed him to Dothan. And in a few verses, his brothers' hands will throw him into a pit and hand him over to a caravan. Not one of those people asked Joseph where he wanted to go. Not one of them was thinking about his dream. 22 years later, Joseph looked at the brothers who sold him and said, "It was God who sent me here ahead of you" (Genesis 45:5 NLT). They pushed. God sent. Joseph learned to see the Sender behind the push.

How this applies to you:

-- His father loved him, the stranger did not know him, and his brothers hated him, and God used all three to move him toward the same place. 

-- Joseph did not walk to Egypt on his own initiative. He was pushed there. Some of the most important moves in your life will not be your idea.

-- Sometimes God uses other people to propel you into your purpose. 

-- Proverbs 16:9 TPT says, "Within your heart you can make plans for your future, but the Lord chooses the steps you take to get there." God's steps ran through Shechem, Dothan, and Egypt, and God used other people's hands to get him there.

-- God uses people who love you, people who do not know you, and people who cannot stand you. Jacob, the stranger, and the brothers all pushed Joseph in the same direction.

-- The push you resent may be the push you needed. Joseph's brothers meant it for evil, and it landed him exactly where the dream needed him to be. What somebody did TO you may be what God is doing FOR you.

-- Stop fighting every push. Not every closed door, layoff, move, or rejection is the enemy. Some of it is God moving you off comfortable ground, because you would never have left on your own.

-- Learn to see the Sender behind the push. Joseph did not tell his brothers, "You sent me here." He said, "God sent me." Until you can say that, you will stay bitter instead of getting better.

3. God Will Put A Stranger In Your Field.

The Bible calls him "a certain man." That is it. No name, no tribe, no backstory. He asked one question, gave one piece of information, and disappeared from Scripture forever. But without that man, there is no Dothan. Without Dothan, there is no pit. Without the pit, there is no caravan, no Egypt, no Potiphar, no prison, no Pharaoh, no Prime Minister, and no bowing brothers. The entire fulfillment of two dreams from God hinged on a conversation with a man whose name nobody wrote down. God did not send an angel. He sent a guy who happened to overhear the brothers say, "Let us go to Dothan."

How this applies to you:

-- While you are traveling down the path to your destiny, you must realize that God uses people who do not know they are being used.

-- Do not despise the nameless. Not every person God sends to redirect you will have a title, a platform, or a following. Some of them will just be in the right place at the right time so they can tell you the right thing.

-- Psalm 37:23 AMPC says the steps of a good man are "directed and established by the Lord" and that God "busies Himself with his every step." God is busy with your steps. That includes arranging who is standing in the field when you get there.

-- You have been the man in the field for somebody else, and you did not know it. A sentence you said in passing sent someone toward their destiny. Destinies are connected, and you do not always get to see the connection.

-- Stay alert. Your Dothan may be one conversation away.

4. Dothan Is Where The Pit Is, And The Pit Is On The Way To Your Destiny.

Now sit with the hardest part of this passage. The stranger's directions were correct, and they led Joseph directly to the pit. He did not get lost. He was not disobedient. He did exactly what he was told, he went exactly where he was pointed, and he walked straight into betrayal. That is the part that messes with our theology. We assume that when we obey, the road will be smooth. Joseph obeyed, and the road went down into a hole in the ground. But 22 years later, standing as the second most powerful man on earth, he looked at that same road and said, "God intended it all for good."

How this applies to you:

-- Sometimes the direction God is leading you to (the right direction) involves a PIT. 

-- While God does not make bad things happen to us, he knows in advance the bad things that other people want to make happen to us. He can use that and turn it around for good. In other words, God can see a pit and make it part of the plan. 

-- Do not judge your life or God’s plan by the day-by-day. Because Destiny is not something that you will always see in the moment. But looking back, you will realize what God was doing and be thankful for it.

-- Isaiah 55:8-9 NLT says God's ways are "far beyond anything you could imagine." Joseph could imagine bowing sheaves, but he could not imagine that the road to the sheaves ran through Dothan. 

-- God hides the details of your future for you, not from you, because if Joseph had known the stranger was pointing him to a pit, he never would have gone to Dothan.

-- If you are in Dothan right now, you are not off course; you are on the part of the course God did not show you.

-- Genesis 50:20 NLT is the verdict on the whole trip: "He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people." The pit was on the way to the palace, and the palace was for the people. In THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, do not quit in Dothan.

Meditate on this message. The detour is not a mistake!

That's enough for today.

Declaration of Faith:

Father, thank You for sending me before I could see where I was going!

I say "Here I am" to the small assignments, because You hide big things inside them!

When people push me, I trust that You are the Sender behind the push!

I keep seeking, and I keep walking, because You are busy with my every step!

I will not despise the stranger You put in my field!

The direction that leads to the pit can still be the right direction!

I do not judge the day-by-day!

What looks like a detour is the road You chose!

I am not off course; I am on the part of the course You did not show me!

In THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!

I declare this by faith. In Jesus' name. Amen!

This is Today's Word. Apply it and prosper!