Author: Christine Wyrtzen

And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her and humiliated her. Genesis 34:2

How much responsibility did Dinah assume for the rape she suffered?  Probably a lot. Perhaps she embraced all of it. After all, if she hadn’t given in to her curiosity to explore Shechem, she wouldn’t have been there to be preyed upon. It was probably hard to separate her part from the predator’s part. Now, she may have been in the wrong place, but she didn’t go there to engage in sexual behavior. The idea of a violent rape was the man’s idea, not hers. In eternal realms, God held him responsible for it.

It is human nature to go to extremes when dealing with responsibility. Either I’m not willing to assume any, believing that everyone else is to blame, or I take every ounce of the blame when it’s not all my fault.

I’m 68 years old. I’ve made a lot of alliances over the course of my life. Some friendships have been seasonal and significant to my spiritual journey. Others, I wish I’d never made. I was naïve and didn’t see the true nature of the ones I let close. In one case, the damage done by the ‘friend’ was severe. I spent years assuming all responsibility for the fallout. I reasoned, “It’s my fault for making friends with this person.” I couldn’t see that my naiveté and their predatory and deceitful behaviors were two separate things.

Maybe you’re in a business relationship gone bad. Maybe you married someone you regret. Maybe you chose to go somewhere once and had no idea that something awful would happen as a result. The only thing worse than grieving the loss itself is to punish yourself for what is not your fault. The guilt for other people’s sinful behavior lies with them. They conceived it. They committed it.

What complicates this is what happens when others who love us hear what we suffered. Consider what went down when Dinah told her family about the rape. I can hear her father rage. “How could you have gone outside the camp to bring this on yourself!” This is often where misplaced responsibility is born. People in grief don’t think clearly and often speak things they regret. They play the ‘only if’ card.

What can I do today if I am partly responsible for something bad that happened? How can I come to understand the right proportions regarding true guilt and over-responsibility? From personal experience, I would advise two things. 1.) Ask God to show you someone safe with whom you can tell your story, someone who listens like Jesus listened. Ask them for a fresh viewpoint.  2.) Seek God in prayer and meditation about your story. I have found that my version of my own story and His version are two entirely different narrations. As long as I assume responsibility that isn’t mine, there can be little healing. Letting go of false guilt and allowing the truth to permeate my perspective changes everything.

You promised that Your sheep would hear Your voice. Speak today, Lord. Be the counselor that each one of us needs. Amen

Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob, went out to see the women of the land. Genesis 34:1

Has curiosity ever gotten you in trouble? There was something in you that just had to know something you didn’t know ~ but could know ~ if you pursued it. Restraint and prudence were set aside.

Curiosity ruined Dinah’s life.  She had grown up sheltered. She only knew the ways of her family. She’d heard stories of other tribes but had never seen them up close. But now, living on the outskirts of Shechem, she was interested to know the ways of these peculiar people. So, she left the protection of her family and wandered off just to satisfy her curiosity. She would be raped and her innocence would be stolen.

There are many things God tells his children to stay away from. Mystical spirituality, peripheral and beguiling edges of the occult, these beckon the curious. So many have tasted hell’s delights and paid a high price for the after-effects. A door was opened that gave Satan access to their lives. Most, even know, don’t know how to close it, or know that it can be closed, and live a life of unrest that comes from spiritual compromise. 

What am I to do with my God-given curiosity? What can I do about my thirst for what is hidden? Is it wrong to want to know the secrets of the kingdom? No. I am the child of a Father who loves to teach me His ways. “There is a God in heaven who is the revealer of mysteries.” Daniel 2:28   My thirst for kingdom secrets, the ones that leave me in openmouthed in wonder, is found in God. If I ask Him to teach me, He takes me to stunning places of wisdom and understanding. When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. John 16:13

The problem is this ~ Satan has led us to believe that spending time with God is boring, that reading scripture is monotonous, and that prayer is the stodgiest thing of all. The problem is compounded by the fact that many of our spiritual teachers aren’t alive to the Spirit of God and keep perpetuating the lie. They are merely reporters of their traditions rather than revealers of the spiritual keys of the kingdom.  We are left to believe that to be emotionally, intellectually, and emotionally stimulated, we must go outside of scripture to find it.  Tarot cards beckon.  Horoscopes attract.  The sins of the flesh glitter.  And the price of consumption is the ravaging of our spiritual boundaries by an enemy who slithers into our property because we give him the legal right to oppress. 

I love to meet with others whose hearts bubble over with what God is teaching them.   Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Romans 11:33 If I set aside an hour to share and to pray with them, the time flies by, and the clock becomes an enemy.  It seems we just got started.  The older I get, the more I discover that life in the Spirit is like a suspension in time.  

Curiosity can be dangerous!  While Dinah didn’t sin by leaving home, she ventured outside safe boundary lines. She would never be the same again. It doesn’t matter who it is ~ roaming outside God’s boundary lines exacts a stiff price and is never worth it. The best things in life are found at home in the courts of our King.

I pray for everyone reading this who doesn’t know You as the revealer of secrets. Open the eyes of their spirit to Your Word. Open the ears of their heart to Your voice. Feed us at Your table, and we will be content. Amen

And Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem and from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, he bought for a hundred pieces of money the piece of land on which he had pitched his tent. There he erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel. Genesis 33:18-20

Jacob’s boldness in erecting an altar in a land with other gods is a challenge to every modern-day Christian. Timidity will not serve God well in these days when the opposition is growing. Maybe we have enjoyed walking in neutrality, never revealing our beliefs for fear of not fitting in, but the time is here when we are being forced to choose publicly whom we will serve.

Imagine moving to India, and just outside a major city, you erect a monument with the inscription, ‘The Mighty God of Israel.’ As you do it, you know that everyone around you is a Hindu. Your worship of any God other than Hindu gods marks you as different. In today’s world, that invites retaliation, even death.

Today, it’s fact and not fiction as an Indian pastor, earlier this year, was dragged out of his church mid-service by a mob of Hindu nationalists and beaten for hours. Yet when the police arrived, they charged the pastor with violating a blasphemy law rather than charge the radicals for their violent assault.

Some Hindu nationalist leaders are deeply paranoid about Hindus converting to Christianity or other religions. One former member of parliament called Christian missionaries “a threat to the unity of the country.”

It is prudent for us to put ourselves in their place. By doing so, our heart is stirred to pray with an intensity born of identification and empathy. It also enables us to role-play for what may be coming our way. Are we bold enough to display our altars to the God of Israel in the midst of Shechem?

How long, Lord, before You come and reign? How long will the blood of martyrs spill on our streets? For Your honor and glory, may only Your sovereign plans for Your people prevail. Amen

Esau said, “What do you mean by all this company that I met?” Jacob answered, “To find favor in the sight of my lord.” But Esau said, “I have enough, my brother; keep what you have for yourself.”  Jacob said, “I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me. Genesis 33:8-10

The last time Jacob saw Esau, he feared his murderous rage. He threatened to kill Jacob for stealing his inheritance. However, Esau had moved on to relinquish his need for revenge. He accumulated a degree of wealth and saw prosperity as God’s favor in his life. Only a shalom with God could prompt him to say, “I have enough favor. Keep what you have, my brother.” This moved Jacob so deeply that he called Esau’s face – the face of God.

Jacob wasn’t just being dramatic. The night before this meeting, Jacob had actually seen the face of God in his encounter with the angel. Jacob named the place of their struggle, ‘Peniel’, which means, ‘I saw God’s face and lived.’  I don’t know what Jacob wrestled with God about, but considering the timing, I suspect it was over the upcoming meeting with Esau. Before he could find peace with his brother, he needed peace with God. 

So do we.  Jesus came and paid the price for you and me to have peace with God.  I need not fear any encounter with Abba.  I need not dread the silences in prayer, wondering what He might say to me.  I need not dread the face-to-face meeting after I die.  Jesus suffered the pain of my estrangement with His Father on the cross when he took my curse and removed the consequences, the very curse that separated God and me in the first place. 

One of my crippling issues of the past was this pervasive feeling that I was a disappointment to God, even on the other side of the cross.  I was certain that one day, Jesus might be happy to see me initially, but it wouldn’t take long to see his gaze fall away and his shoulders slump.  This dread I lived with was a stronghold.  The tangled web of lies that created it took a while to work through, but the battle was worth it.  After multiple decades, shalom came to my soul. 

My relationship with you has been messy, Lord. You have been faithful to lead me through my own objections and unbelief.   Your face is beyond words. Amen

And when Esau lifted up his eyes and saw the women and children, he said, “Who are these with you?” Jacob said, “The children whom God has graciously given your servant.” Genesis 33:5

Jacob was humble as he introduced his family to Esau. Time and hardship had chipped away at some of his hardheartedness and entitlement but his recent wrestling with God brought him to his lowest point, preparing him for this moment. He had encountered God in a wrestling match and lived.  He learned that God had not come to take his life but to spare it. 

There were two defining moments in Jacob’s life.  They occurred twenty years apart.  They were both nocturnal theophanies, encounters with God at night.  The first time, God appeared to him at Bethel to give him the promises of the Covenant.  The second time, God came as an angel and initiated a wrestling match.  God touched his hip and dislocated it, causing him to emerge as a limping patriarch.  In that encounter, he was also given a new name.  Israel.  He learned that, while he had been a man bent on trickery and scheming, God still loved him and would bless him. 

When Esau and Jacob finally faced each other, Esau opened the conversation with a question.  He asked his brother about the people who had traveled with him.  The old Jacob might have answered differently. “This is my extensive family. Aren’t they impressive? I really was supposed to have our father’s blessing! Look how God has blessed me.”  But this is not how he answered.  He introduced them as ‘the gift God had graciously given him.’

People don’t usually soften with time.  Meekness isn’t something sought.  Admissions of past guilt are rare.  While Jacob’s overall character didn’t match up to that of his grandfather, Abraham, his words to the brother he had wronged were marked by humility.  Finally.  It was such a breath of fresh air, so becoming to Jacob.

Where do I need to be clothed in humility?  Show me where traces of defensiveness and entitlement still reign in my flesh.  Amen

He [Jacob] himself went on before them, bowing himself to the ground seven times, until he came near to his brother. Genesis 33:3

When I’ve wronged someone, my feelings can be complicated. I can be upset over the wrong thing. Am I upset about what I did, or am I upset because the other person is angry?  I may also be upset because the consequences seem out of line with the offense.

It was a miracle that Jacob bowed down to Esau after all that had transpired between them. They had never been close, not even as children. Yet, Jacob treated Esau as one treats a royal in Near Eastern culture. In court protocol, one bowed seven times, referred to himself as a servant, called the royal ‘lord’, and brought gifts of homage. Jacob did every single one of these things.

When I’ve hurt someone, it’s easy to be more upset about their response than what I did. Not knowing what to do with their anger, I am tempted to hide. Jacob didn’t have the luxury. God told him to return to Canaan and to obey, he would have to pass right through Esau’s territory. There would be no escaping the reunion. When Jacob finally saw Esau, he didn’t defend himself in any way nor did he blame Esau for the seething anger he must have felt through the years. 

When God is the One I’ve offended, it can be complicated too. Instead of remorse, I can be angry that God is displeased. I can condemn His law and call Him unreasonable. I can believe He’s making a mountain out of a molehill.  But who am I to judge the One who is righteous?  Do I dare even think, “What’s the big deal?”  It would do me well to remember court protocol when I’ve sinned. I should come before the throne and bow low, calling Him, “Lord”, and referring to myself as His servant.

If God seems distant because of our sins, what are we really upset about today? It would be good to isolate the reason because anything other than remorse puts our relationship with Him in cobwebs. Satan is always nearby, too, to weave the strands.  He throws a party when there is estrangement.  What a great breeding ground for further progression of anger and mistrust.

Holy Spirit, help us in this complicated journey of reconciliation. Amen

And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. Genesis 32:24

Jacob was about to meet Esau. He thought Esau would surely kill him.  He was alone the night before the confrontation and begged God for his life.  He reminded Him of his covenant blessings but wasn’t sure what God would do.  Of all nights, this was a night he needed sleep. Yet God came to him in the form of a man and wrestled with him all night until he was absolutely spent. He emerged from the fight just exhausted from the hand-to-hand wrestling match.

Though I have never wrestled with God in the flesh, I have known the deep weariness that comes from no sleep. It usually occurred the night before a spiritually significant event. I was anticipating a night of good sleep yet, in spite of all the preparation, I slept fitfully. I felt like I wrestled in prayer, that there was a battle being waged over me. I woke up exhausted and depleted.

Nights of angst are so unpleasant.  I do know this, however. God has drawn near to me when I’ve been drained and when the stakes were high.  Emptied of all self-effort, I did not strive with His Spirit at a time when what I said and did really mattered.

Perhaps you are facing one of the most important days of your life. Could be a court date, an interview for a new job, or a doctor’s appointment to strategize on future care. You haven’t slept well. You feel like you’ve been up all night and you can’t imagine how you will get through your day. Maybe you’re frustrated with God for your weakened condition.

Don’t back up from him. This is the time to run home.

Don’t battle with Him. You are too spent for that.

And perhaps that is the point. God longs for you to know that He is your strength and never is that more true than when you have none of your own.

You are large in our view when we are small. Do not let us despise frailty. Forgive us, Lord, for when we stand in the way of what You want to do through our weakness. Amen

Jacob instructed the first servant, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a present sent to my lord Esau. For Jacob thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterward I shall see his face. Perhaps he will accept me.” Genesis 32:17-20

Have you ever wronged someone and then felt so guilty you couldn’t face them? You steered clear of them for a good long while.  Or perhaps you went in another direction and decided to sell your soul to win back their love.  

At this part in the Genesis story, Jacob was about to meet Esau. He avoided him for many years after cheating him out of his inheritance, but the Lord said it was time for Jacob to go home.  To do that meant going straight through Esau’s territory.  The time for hiding was over.  Jacob was afraid for his life.  So, he conceived the best possible plan to smooth things over with his brother. He sent three groups of servants ahead of him with expensive gifts.  They were also armed with heartwarming speeches. This, Jacob hoped, would soften the future moment when the two brothers laid eyes on each other. 

While this kind of posturing sometimes works in human relationships, it does not work with God.  All for nothing, we wear ourselves out trying to win God’s favor.  We believe that He is hard to please and downright unreasonable.  We are sure that we must come with gifts and perfect behavior to put Him in a better mood. We hope that we can make Him like us again.  (And, we are also in control of the reconciliation instead of resting in God’s righteous character.)

Because of Jesus, there is no need to appease God. Christ’s own blood appeased God forme. He did all the grueling work, brought the gift of His sacrifice on ahead of me so that all I had to do was come in His name. No games. No conditions. Only grace and favor.

You grieve when I take on hard labor and live like a slave.  All You want is a sincere apology accompanied by faith in Your love and forgiveness.  Amen

And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.” Genesis 32:6

If your brother wanted to kill you and you heard that he was on his way with 400 men, where would your mind go?  You’d probably envision something calamitous.  Jacob pictured doom as well, and he was filled with anxiety.

But wait! Not long before this, Laban had also been on the hunt for Jacob. He came at him with 400 men, but God delivered him. How short was Jacob’s memory?  Did he not think God could intervene again?

My memory can also be short when the same kind of trial visits me for the second time! Like Jacob, I experienced the thrill of God delivering me the first time around but when the threat is in front of my face again, I automatically run to despair.  Where is my faith? 

While it may be hard to voice it, I really believe that His generous spirit toward me has expired. Yes, He’ll do something wonderful once, but if I ask for it twice, He’ll be turned off.  I believe that God acts on the whims of good or bad moods.

Believing that God will write new chapters in my life requires me to stand amidst very powerful emotions. While it’s always easier to feed my fears and starve my faith, I choose differently.  I will feed my faith, knowing that fears will die.

Today, I will not doubt Your power, and even more important than that, I will not doubt Your love. Amen

And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant. Please deliver me from the hand of Esau, for I fear him. But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’ ” Genesis 32:9-12

I lived many days where prayers were casual. “Bless our family today and help us love and serve you more!” I even prayed this while driving, filing papers, or eating my morning yogurt.  But I learned in my twenties that there was another kind of prayer, the kind that Jacob prayed before Esau came to meet him with 400 armed men. We often fall to our knees when we’re fighting for our lives.

The door jam in our house that borders our guest room has been gripped and wet with tears on many, many occasions. Getting up in the night to pray, I laid my head against it, held on to the frame tightly, and pleaded with God to remember His covenant with me and my family. Utter desperation has been the backdrop of these prayers.  They are respectful prayers but not necessarily polite, with attempts to say things just right.  Desperate prayers spill out of desperation, and they are often incoherent.

It is not arrogant to come humbly before God and remind Him of His promises, to take hold of the hem of His garment and plead for your life. It’s the equivalent of a child saying to his father, “But you said!”  My relationship with Him is often one where I wrestle over my Canaan.  While praying, I’m usually trying to get to the bottom of my own angst and inaccurate perceptions of His character.

God is a Covenant Maker and does not make promises begrudgingly.

You delight in Your covenant relationship with me.  I am in awe.  Amen