God Meant It Unto Good

The title of the Come, Follow Me lesson this week is “God Meant it Unto Good” which comes from Genesis 50:20. After Jacob died, Joseph’s brothers came to him, worried that “Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil which we did unto him.” They were ready for Joseph to take vengeance upon them. They said this to Joseph: “Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil: and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father.” When Joseph had first shown himself to his brothers he had shown them forgiveness and love: “Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life…. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God” (Genesis 45:5-8). And yet, they still felt guilty and here after the death of their father were seeking forgiveness from their younger brother whom they had wronged and feared he would exact punishment. They “also went and fell down before his face; and they said, Behold, we be thy servants.” Joseph again in an incredible show of mercy and love offered them forgiveness: “Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them” (Genesis 50:15-21). Joseph had no bitterness to his brothers but with magnanimity was able to see the good that had come from his terrible suffering. Surely this phrase is one that we can likewise use in our own lives as difficult circumstances, perhaps even caused by the misuse of agency of others, are used by the Lord for His purposes: “God meant it unto good.” God can turn even tragedy and trouble into redemption and salvation.

                One place where we see this principle in the scriptures is in the beginning with the fall of Adam and Eve. Though much of Christianity looks upon it only as a mistake that caused suffering to come into the world, we know that it was a step forward in God’s plan and brought to pass the coming into mortality of the Father’s children. Adam and Eve were able to look back and indeed see that “God meant it unto good.” Adam commented, “Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God.” Because of the fall he was able to have joy and return back to the Father with a body. Eve similarly rejoiced, “Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient” (Moses 5:10-11). Because of the fall she realized that she was able to have children and gain joy through the redemption of Jesus Christ. The fall was a part of the Father’s plan which, though it brought suffering into the world, was meant like Joseph’s story to “save much people.”

                Along with the fall, the Savior’s atonement was another instance—the most important of them all—in which God took suffering and tragedy and turned it into salvation. The Savior declared, “I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent…. Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:16-18). He suffered more than humanly possible so that we would not have to if we would repent. Indeed, “God meant it unto good” so that all of His children who follow the Savior could “inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.” Jacob rejoiced, “O the greatness of the mercy of our God, the Holy One of Israel! For he delivereth his saints from that awful monster the devil, and death, and hell…. he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam. And he suffereth this that the resurrection might pass upon all men” (2 Nephi 9:18-22). The whole plan of redemption is dependent upon the suffering and death of the Savior, that terrible event which “brought to pass the redemption of the world” so that we can all “dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father, and unto the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God, in a state of happiness which hath no end” (Mormon 7:7). Joseph’s story reminds us that God can turn all things for our good and that the Savior, through His atonement and resurrection, can save us no matter what sorrow and suffering we experience in mortality.