Yesterday's podcast ended with words about the mystery of Providence.

And maybe that expression is familiar to you because it's the title of a well-known

and wonderfully helpful book written by a man called John Flavall. He was a minister

in the south coast of England in the 17th century and he knew a great deal of suffering.

If you've ever read any of his works, there are actually six large volumes of them.

I think you'll agree with me that it must have been a tremendous blessing to have a John

Flavall as your minister. But like many of his colleagues in the 17th century, he went

through very difficult times. And yet they were God's investments in his ministry. So it's

not surprising in a way that he was able to write a wonderful book on the Providence of

God. And he describes God's Providence in what I think is a very clever and helpful way.

He wrote that the Providences of God are like Hebrew words. They can be read only backwards.

Now you know that Hebrew is written from right to left, not as English from left to right.

And so if you get a Hebrew book, you might think that the back of the book is the front

of the book and vice versa. And God's Providence is like that, isn't it? In terms of the way we

think, it sometimes seems back to front. And you can't second-guess God's Providences in your life.

Although most of us, I think, do that at some point. The Lord leads us to do something and we tend

to assume that the first certain things will follow, but that's not always the case. His ways

are not our ways. His thoughts are not ours. Sometimes indeed we assume that if we are obedient,

then everything will then kind of follow out towards fulfilling our own expectations.

And then sometimes it seems as though life crumbles in our hands.

So God's Providence is a very great mystery and we can't always second-guess what He's doing.

Now that was certainly true of Joseph's story. And yesterday I was commenting on the responsibility

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