Marble Troubles, Sandy Blessings

Have you ever noticed how we tend to remember the negative far more vividly than the positive? I certainly have. Last week, while chatting with a friend about our past year, I found myself dwelling on the challenges like health flare-ups, ministry disappointments, and frustrating conversations. My list of troubles flowed effortlessly, while I struggled to recall specific blessings.

It struck me later that I’d been etching my trials in marble while letting my blessings wash away like footprints in the sand.

This peculiar human tendency reminds me of Joseph in the Bible. Talk about someone who could have clung to bitterness! Sold into slavery by his own brothers, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, and forgotten in prison by the cupbearer, Joseph had a mental museum of grievances he could have displayed.

Instead, when naming his sons, Joseph made a remarkable choice. His firstborn he named Manasseh, saying, "For God, said he, hath made me forget all my toil, and all my father's house" (Genesis 41:51). The name literally means "causing to forget." Then he named his second son Ephraim, declaring, "For God hath caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction" (Genesis 41:52).

Do you see the beautiful wisdom here? Joseph deliberately chose to forget his troubles and remember God's goodness, even while still living in "the land of affliction."

How different from our natural inclinations! When someone wounds us with a careless comment, we replay it endlessly, examining it from every angle. Yet when someone offers words of encouragement, we might smile briefly before the sentiment fades into the background of our consciousness.

We construct monuments to our hurts while allowing our blessings to be written in disappearing ink.

I wonder how our outlook might change if we reversed this pattern? What if we took our slights and disappointments and intentionally traced them in the sand, allowing the tide of God's grace to wash them smooth? What if we carefully chiseled our blessings, both great and small, into the enduring marble of our memory?

The apostle Paul understood this principle when he wrote, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).

Like Joseph, Paul chose the path of purposeful forgetting and faithful remembering.

Today, I’m challenging us to adopt Joseph's perspective. Let's name our days "Manasseh" when we need to forget the hurts that hold us back. And let’s call our circumstances "Ephraim" as we recognize God’s fruitfulness even in our difficulties.

What might you need to trace in the sand today? And which blessings deserve to be engraved in marble?