Favor Doesn’t Always Feel Good
This week, I’m going to share something I wrote before I had a blog. About a year ago, I started writing “blogs” even though I had no website or no way to share them. I just wrote to write. In this writing, I muse about favor in the midst of seasons that don’t feel like your favorite, and as I go back and re-read, I love reflecting on how God has provided me with a job I enjoy, a roof over my head, and roommates to ride out the pandemic with. It’s cool to see how God took me out of Memphis, and is preparing, yet again, to take me somewhere new. This blog feels just as relevant today as it did nearly one year ago, so I wanted to share it with you.
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As I write, it is a hot summer day in Memphis; the humidity is near 100%, COVID cases are back on the rise, and I am unemployed, living alone, and so far, unable to find work. About 6 months ago, I moved here out of faith and obedience to God, transitioning to a newly created position in a city to which I always thought I’d move back but, in the same breath, swore I’d never return. Confusing, right?
I decided to call this place home, and I’ll admit, I expected a particular brand of favor to be born out of my obedience. I expected God to help me excel at my job, to make friends and build community quickly, and to generally be really happy because I was walking with Him and listening to His instructions. Instead, I lost my job and have had to spend an unprecedented number of hours alone in my little apartment, often going weeks without seeing someone I know. Not exactly what I had in mind when I said “yes.”
Favor is a weird concept, I’ll admit, and it gets even stranger when we think about the difference between the favor of man and the favor of God. As humans, we ask people to “do us favors” all the time, and usually, we expect the person to do exactly what we ask them to do, just because they are kind and accommodating.
Imagine one roommate calls down the stairs, “Hey! Can you do me a favor? Bring that laundry up when you come?”
“Sure - I’m on it!” replies the other, and then a few minutes later, up she comes with the laundry.
It is in this way we have been conditioned to think favor looks like getting exactly what we asked of someone because, with humans, favor often looks like a benevolent expression of kindness that feels good and meets our expectations. So then, what does it look like to be favored by God? That is a trickier question. The favor of God is ultimately a benevolent expression of kindness, but our brains cannot fathom the ways of God, and there are moments in life when His favor doesn’t exactly look like what we imagined.
Take Joseph, for example. He was highly favored and anointed by God to preserve a remnant of Hebrews through years of famine, yet when he told his brothers about his dreams where he rules over them, they decided to sell him into slavery. Soon, he experienced some favor in the house of Potiphar, but is later falsely accused of sleeping with Potiphar’s wife and imprisoned. It is only through this he comes to experience the full favor of God on earth when he successfully interprets Pharaoh’s dreams and is appointed to be in charge of Egypt. There were many moments in Joseph’s life where God’s favor didn’t feel like favor, but it absolutely was, and out of this, the 12 tribes of Israel were preserved. (This is an over-simplification of an important story. You can read the full story of Joseph in Genesis 37-50, and I definitely recommend it).
One of my favorite Psalms is Psalm 84, and towards the end, the psalmist writes:
“For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.
Lord almighty,
blessed is the one who trusts in you” (v. 11-12).
“No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.” That particular line sticks with me because often, trials are the avenues to experiencing God’s goodness in this life and the next. His favor is faithful, so he protects me, he challenges me, and he refines me, all the while growing my faith. He knows where he is taking me, and that makes the tenth rejection email from a prospective employer a little easier to swallow because I have faith in the “best yes” of my Father who loves me.
I’m not sure what’s next for me in Memphis and beyond, but I am confident in the one who called me here. I believe in His promises, and today, that is enough for me to press on, remembering that favor doesn’t always feel good, but it always has the potential to bring His goodness before me.
