Genesis chapter 37

Joseph was his father's favourite and his brothers knew it.  Joseph also reported everything they did to their father, and because he told Jacob all the bad things they did, they held a grudge against  Joseph.  The thing is, though, that if they had not been doing anything bad, then Joseph would only have had good things to report.  They obviously perceived Joseph as a tell tale, a goodie two shoes doing everything  their father asked and were jealous of his favourite son status.

It is difficult if you love one child more than another to remain impartial, but it is essential to try and do this so as to be fair to each child.  I always try to make sure that we treat all our children the same, and I know they watch to make sure one is not getting a better, more expensive birthday present than another, for instance.  I know they keep track of things like this from comments they have mace in the past. 

Joseph here seems to have taken great pride in telling his brothers all about his dreams, a complete difference from later on in Genesis when he gives God the glory.  He has the gift of being able to interpret dreams from God, but here, he uses it to score against his brothers, to make himself look good.  It is not until he has suffered imprisonment, false accusation and all sorts that he finally learns to trust n God, to give Him the glory.  It took suffering for God to be able to use Joseph and it all started with Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery.  God then turned this wicked act into something that saved an entire nation.

Sometimes, when we are going through trials, when there is illness, death, financial problems, marital problems, job difficulties, trouble at school/college, it seems like God is far away, that He doesn't care and is leaving us to fend for ourselves.  I am sure there were times when Joseph thought about that as he was taken away into slavery and captivity.  I know the things that I have been through have made me a more sympathetic person, kinder, more accepting, although I often wanted the things I was going through to magically disappear.  God used the troubles we go through to refine us, to make us more like Christ and to turn us into the people he has always designed us to be.

Genesis chapter 36

This is about Esau and how took wives from the Canaanite women, then married a cousin, and moved away from Jacob so they could both have enough land  to support them. 

They say you can choose your friends but not your relatives, and this is a classic example of two brothers who did not get along.  Esau was his father's favourite and Jacob the favourite of his mother.  Jacob, who seems to have been a real schemer, took Esau's birthright in exchange for a bowl of stew and ended up having to flee for his life to Laban.

You would think being family, they would trust one another, respect one another, but not so in this case.   Jacob tricked Esau and Esau's descendants became some of the fiercest enemies of Israel and even today, thousands of years later,  Esau's descendants surround Israel (Edom is now part of Jordan, bordering Israel) and are causing trouble and friction to say the least. 

Genesis chapter 35

How can we worship the one true living God when we have idols in our hearts?  People, possessions, things that take the place of God in our hearts and put him in second place?  Like Jacob and his family, we need to take a good long hard look at ourselves, at our hopes and dreams, our lifestyle, our priorities. 

Is there anything in our lives that takes us away from God?  That we put above God in our lives?  Is work our priority and God second place?   Is getting that new job or promotion the thing that occupies our mind to the exclusion of all else?  Are we so wrapped up in the lives of our spouses and children that we cannot see God?  Are we always worrying about finances, about the bills coming in, the expenses we have to meet?  What about church - do we spend more time daydreaming in church, looking around at what people are wearing, who is or isn't there, than in worship and praise?  Is our worship half hearted as we keep thinking of the things we have done or need to do, or remembering past hurts and grudges?

We need to get rid of anything like that which is in our hearts, to focus our attention on God and God alone, and take the worries, the cares, the problems to Him.  

Genesis chapter 34

This is the sort of story that could easily be made into a film.  There is love (well, passion at any rate), pride, sex, deceit, betrayal, lies, violence, greed, murder - all the hallmarks of what apparently describes a good film or makes for excellent newspaper headlines in the tabloids. 

Dinah is raped and Jacob's sons, especially Simeon and Levi, are really upset about this, understandably.  They feel that their sister has been defiled and that because they have been set aside by God, they are special, holy, a cut above the others, better than the townspeople of Shechem.  So they trick the men of Shechem into getting circumcised - the thought of getting their hands on the flocks and herds of Jacob and his sons persuades the townsmen to undergo this painful procedure.  Then when they are still recovering, Simeon and Levi walk into town and kill all the men.  The rest of the brothers then follow on, taking the little children and wives captive, looting and plundering everything they could lay their hands on.  Jacob is appalled, saying that his name would now be mud and all the inhabitants of the land would join together to destroy him and his household.

It’s a case of two wrongs do not make a right.  Repaying evil with evil is not the right thing to do.  How can theft and murder be the right response to rape?  Yes, it is easy to sit here and take the moral high ground, and if I had a sister , or if it had been my daughter, I may well think differently.  For instance,  Christians in Pakistan are 2.5% of the population.  Women believers there are often raped, young girls and women may be kidnapped and forcibly converted to Islam and then married to a much older man.   If Christian women work as servants in a rich Muslim's house, they are treated like dirt and often beaten, maltreated, raped.  Many are raped and then thrown onto the streets where they have no choice but to turn to prostitution.  I was reading only last week of a pregnant mother who was brutally beaten up as a warning to the family to stop trying to get the police to prosecute the rapists of their 12 year old niece.  The mother (who was five months pregnant) ended up losing the baby.  The family are Christians, and the rapists are Muslims.

It is truly heartbreaking to hear of God's people being treated this way, His sons and daughters being persecuted and I just sit here warm and cosy in my nice house, in front of my computer when their faith, their lack of hatred against their oppressors, their warmth, their courage, their smiles in the face of persecution, puts me to shame.

And what about Dinah?  She is mentioned only briefly in the bible, firstly to tell us she has been born (Genesis 30:21) and then here where she is raped, given to Shechem and then nothing more is heard of her.  Imagine her reaction when after being raped her own brothers agree to give her in marriage to the man who attacked her! She is actually being kept in Shechem's house when the men of the town are killed, and her brothers then take her back to the camp.  And Jacob?  He is more concerned about what will happen to him and his household than about what has happened to Dinah.

Evil is never the right response.  The consequences of this action followed Simeon and Levi and their descendants ended up losing that part of the Promised Land that they had been given.  We are told to keep the peace as far as possible though (1 Peter 3:11 Let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace, and ensue it - KJV) and whilst this doesn't mean being a doormat and letting others attack us without taking any steps to defend ourselves, it certainly doesn't mean taking revenge in such a brutal and deceitful way.

Genesis chapter 33

If Jacob was still worried about how Esau would receive him, the way he split up the group clearly shows his preferences.  First in the line of fire were the servant wives and their children, then Leah and her children and finally Jacob and Rachel.  Yet the precautions were unnecessary as Esau greeted Jacob with a big hug.  Whilst time way from each other had caused the one brother to worry over his reception, the other had come to terms with their disagreement and was no longer bitter. 

This was such an answer to prayer that I bet Jacob never even expected in his wildest dreams.  It just shows that God can do even more than we could ever imagine:

Ephesians 1:18-21 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,  and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,  far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (NASB)

Sometimes, we can worry ourselves silly over things that happen, or that we think are going to happen, and yet God has everything under his control, in His hands.  We can spend a lifetime worrying over every single thing that happens to us, worrying about our jobs (or lack of a job), our homes (or lack of a home), our spouses (or lack of a spouse), our children (or lack of children), the world, the man next door, whether it will rain tomorrow or not, anything and everything.  But all this ignores God in our lives, ignores the fact that each one of us believers is filled with the Holy Spirit, our comforter and guide, and that Jesus himself told us to cast all our burdens on him for his yoke is light and his burden easy.

I know I for one need to spend more time in prayer, to take all things to God, not just the big ones, or the ones that seem more important or more worrying.  God knows our hearts, knows the things that make us smile, the ones that cause us pain, and through him, we can do anything.  The arm of the Lord is not too short to deal with my problems, or even the problems in the world.  I just need to learn to talk to Him, to take things to Him and to have en ever deepening relationship with him.

Genesis chapter 32

When Jacob last saw Esau, he had just robbed Esau of his father's blessing and was basically running to Laban to get away from Esau and save his skin.  Now, many years later, he returns and is very worried about how Esau will treat him.  So the first thing he does is pray to God, which kind of makes my cynicism in the last chapter look misplaced!

It is such an example as well, because how often do problems arise in life and we try and sort them out ourselves, without even mentioning them to God, let alone praying about them?  And yes, I know God knows about them anyway since He knows everything about us, but that isn't the point.  In any relationship there has to be two way conversation for the relationship to work.  You can't be married to someone and not talk to them, you can't have children and not speak to them (imagine the chaos if you did that and let the children do what they wanted, when they wanted!!!) and in the same way, you can't have a relationship with God and not pray.

Prayer should be the first thing we do in an situation, not the one thing we do only after we have exhausted all other options and not come up with a solution ourselves. I have a habit of doing this, trying to sort everything out myself, getting all stressed and anxious, feeling like the weight of the world is on my shoulders and that no one else cares or is bothered, when all I  have to do is pray, take it to God and ask Him to handle it.  I have learned that God can be trusted, no matter what the problem.  I now He always answers my prayers, maybe not the way I want, maybe not at the time I want, but each one is answered, and when I have doubts, I just remember the 1,000 year rule (a 1,000 years is as a day to the Lord and a day is as a 1,000 years therefore if 1 day = 1,000 years, 14.4 minutes = 10 years!) and try to have patience.

Here, Jacob is reminding God of his promises, of how He said that Jacob would have descendants as numerous as the sand, because after all, if Esau killed Jacob, then Jacob would have no more children so would potentially never be the father of many descendants.  After all, Jacob has for many years been used to fending for himself, sorting things out his way, on his terms but now he knows he cannot sort out the problem of Esau on his own.  He needs the help of God to put things right between himself and his brother whom he wronged all those years ago. 

However, to help smooth the way, Jacob prepares gifts of herds of sheep, goats, cows, bulls  and camels.  The night before he is due to meet Esau, he takes his wives and children to a place of safety, splits his herds into two so if one is lost, he will still have the other, and spends the night on his own where he wrestles with a man until daybreak. This man was an angel of the Lord and he was sent by God at a time when Jacob had nowhere else to turn.  There was absolutely nothing Jacob could do about Esau.  Esau's reaction to the return of Jacob, his gifts, his wives and family was  a huge unknown.   Jacob might try to do all he could to ensure a warm welcome (or at least a safe one where Esau did not try to kill him in revenge for stealing his birth right) but he could not control Esau's reaction in any way.  It was completely out of his hands and all he could do was ask God.

So God sends his angel and the angel demonstrates by wrestling with Jacob that God is in control, that He is the stronger of the two, that you have to grab onto God with both hands and not let go, no matter what happens, and keep tight hold to receive the blessing of God.   Jacob wrestles with the angel all night and in the morning, the angel touches Jacob's hip and leaves him with a permanent limp.  This is a reminder to Jacob of his relationship with God and that he can do nothing on his own, his strength coming from God alone.  Then God also gives Jacob a new name, Israel, which means "he struggles with God".  Just compare that with Jacob, which means "he grasps the heel" or, in other words, trickster or deceiver.

Genesis chapter 31

Trust again is the theme here, although I wonder just how much Jacob would have actually trusted God if things weren't getting difficult with Laban.  Maybe it is me just being cynical here, but Jacob and Laban were both schemers, always trying to outwit the other, and if everything had been good between them, I just wonder whether Jacob would have upped and left as he did.

Of course, it is easy to sit here and be cynical about someone's motives, to make a judgment based on a few words as, after all, isn't that what we do a lot of the time anyway, judge people based on what they are wearing, what someone has told us, the impression we get?  Here I am, questioning Jacob and his obedience to God, his motives, his reasonings, when chances are, he did listen, and he did obey and would have done exactly the same no matter what the situation between him and Laban.

But it is not just Jacob who has to trust in God at this stage in his life, it is also Leah and Rachel who are being asked to trust too.  They are having to leave the only home they have never known to travel to a distant land, to meet relatives they have only heard of, and it will be all strange and new.  So much so, in fact, that Rachel decides to take Laban's household gods, idols he worships, along with her.  Se doesn't know God as Jacob does.  Maybe she thinks Jacob is imagining things when he hears God talk to him, maybe she just wants to hedge her bets.   After all, a little extra insurance on the spiritual side of things can only be a good thing, right?  She is off to a strange land and wants to take something familiar with her, something she is used to having around, a comfort from home.

Mind you, there was apparently a custom in those days that the person who possessed the household gods was the heir, so there may well have been a completely different motive for Rachel taking the idols.

We all do things like that.  There are things, people, places in our lives that we are fond of, that we are used to and do not want to do without.  Sometimes these take the place of God in our lives, they push everything else behind them as we allow them to take priority in our lives. Like, for instance, when I just have to check my emails before I start reading my bible in a morning and before I know it, it is time to make my son's breakfast, take him to school and then start work….and where is my bible reading in all this, my spending a quiet time with God?  I allow the things of this world to push god to second, third or an even lower place in my life.

Yet I have learned over the years that God can be trusted, even when I allow the things of this world to take priority.  I may not have the experiences that Jacob and others have had, I may not hear God's voice telling me to go and do this, that or the other, but I get the nudges, the prompts, and every so often, I hear God speaking to me, reassuring me, comforting me.  I trust in Him because I know He can be trusted, that when He says He will do something, He does it.  I know He answers all my prayers, not necessarily the way I want, I have to say, but I know whatever God does for me, is for me best, because He has a plan for me, a plan for my good not for my harm, and He is with me no matter what I am doing, even though at times, I feel so very alone.  Just as He was with Jacob all those years ago, even when Jacob was plotting and scheming, trying to outwit Laban.   I know I don't always trust in God as fully as I should when I try to sort things out for myself on many an occasion but I do know that He is always there, always by my side, watching over me, guiding me, leading me, if I only but stopped to listen and hear His voice.  I know that no matter what happens,  God is faithful.

So trust in God is a part of what and who I am just as it became a part of Jacob, and Abraham, and all those others mentioned in Hebrews.  Is it part of you?