Shift Your Focus

"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."- Genesis 50:20 
  
I want you to understand something today: if you never heal from what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who never cut you. Jesus understood that His assignment wasn’t to bleed "on" people but to bleed "for" them. For Jesus, this shift came in the form of asking not what Judas did “to” Him, but in understanding what Judas did “for” Him. That’s a powerful shift in focus.

Joseph told his brothers in Genesis 50 that what they meant for evil, God used for his good. Right after acknowledging the one who would betray Him, Jesus moves on to communion. He identifies Judas as the betrayer, but immediately starts serving dinner, sharing food, and giving thanks to God. Jesus knew He had bigger things to do than to let Judas’s betrayal keep Him from His mission.
 
Jesus did not verbally assault Judas or force him to leave. He did not tell the other disciples to shun Judas. Instead, He kept His eyes on His mission and His divine assignment. He understood that if you spend too much time on what and who hurt you, you won’t devote enough time to how it helped you.

That’s right! What hurt you can help you. While you’re ruminating about how much you lost or how your life would have been better if your Judas hadn’t done that, you might be missing the lesson God wants you to get and the glory God wants you to give.
 
In my own life, I’ve had to learn how to shift from thinking about what they did “to” me to thinking about what they did “for” me. When I reached that point, that’s when my healing came. It’s a radical reversal of how we are accustomed to thinking about hurt.  

It suggests that the things and people who tried to destroy you may have developed something in you. It doesn’t mean what they did was okay—it wasn’t. But it does mean that God can use it for your good. Joseph was telling his brothers, "Had you not put me in that pit, I never would have gone to prison, and if I had never gone to prison, I never would have made it into the palace. You hurt me, but it helped me."
 
The same can be true in our lives. What the enemy designed to destroy us can end up delivering us. What was meant to break us can end up blessing us. So, shift your focus. Look at your hurt through the lens of God’s bigger plan. Trust that He can use even your deepest pain for your ultimate good and His glory.