DOES GOD HAVE A HEART FOR YOUR FAMILY?

Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place.  For we are about to destroy this place.”  Genesis 19:12

         The members of Lot’s family don’t appear to have a deep and abiding relationship with God.  Yet, when it’s time for God’s judgment to come upon Sodom, the angels ask Lot to gather all members of his family for salvation.  God is invested in families because of the spiritual life of one member.  If your heart is heavy over certain ones of your family, you’re not the only one who cares.  God does.  Why?

1. He loves you.  He cares about who you love.  He sees every tear you have cried over a son or daughter.  He feels the stress you feel over the fractures in your marriage.  When your heart aches, His heart aches.   You feel alone when you bear the burden of carrying your family in prayer?  You are not shouldering this by yourself.  Jesus rose again and lives to intercede for each of you. You often despair and think you are the only one praying?  You’re not. Jesus is!
2.   God made families and He is invested in what He creates.  Families didn’t come out of nowhere.  God made Adam, then Eve, and invented the marital relationship.  Children were born because God made a way for families to be born.  The first outcry that reached heaven’s ears came when the first two brothers fought and one killed the other.  So broken was the heart of God!

         Every single one of us thinks about eternity and it is a wonderfully bittersweet experience.  Ah, heaven and being with Jesus.  Finally!  But then comes the piercing thought of family who might not join us there.  God knows.  Just as He told Lot to go gather each member of his family, giving them the opportunity to hear of impending doom and to make the choice to leave the city, He will hear our prayers about those we love.  He is giving each one (though we may not know about it) many opportunities to be aware of Him and His Son, Jesus.  Every seed we have planted is not dormant.  It is active – stirred by the Spirit in their consciences and in their memories.

You invite me to bring my burdens to You and leave them.  Jesus, I will bring each person in my family, place them in Your lap, and pray while You work!  Thank you.  Amen

GOD PUT AN EVIL MAN TO DEATH

And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord put him to death. Genesis 38:6-7

         This is an example of how God deals with evil. It is but one example. He put a wicked man to death to spare Tamar and their descendants from whatever evil Er would have committed.

         Here’s the question that comes next ~ Why does God annihilate the wicked in this particular story but not others? This is why some say they can’t trust God. His inconsistency is a stumbling block.

         No one has a definitive word on the purposes of God except God Himself. However, scripture gives a small window on why evil is allowed to exist. It is an invitation to showcase the power and glory of God.

         I have been close to evil. Our family suffered over the course of a few decades because of our proximity to it. We initially called it senseless. I sunk into a deep depression.  It appeared it had no value whatsoever except destruction. But God kept speaking, kept wooing, kept inviting each of us to bring Him the pain we suffered. He gave us the grace the work through it emotionally. He also invited us not to live in the middle of the story. He showed us promise after promise that He was a Redeemer of suffering. While the story is far from over, the redemption of what was perpetrated against us has been overwhelming. On center stage is God, Himself. His power is unmistakable; His glory on full display.

         Does this seem hollow? If you have suffered, or are suffering from the aftermath of something evil, you may be in the senseless stage. Your cries have been audible. “Why didn’t God stop it?”

         For every evil committed, there is a redemption. For every devastation, there is a promise. The reason so many are angry with God is because they haven’t yet seen the redemption He offers. When He reveals Himself to the brokenhearted believer and begins to personalize a redemptive story to match their tragedy, His power and glory are blinding. Don’t get stuck in the middle of your story. If the cross can be called the ‘cross of glory’, any kind of evil is a candidate for resurrection power.

Walk into the darkness with those today who think You are absent. Amen

A HUNDRED YEARS FROM NOW

Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard.  Genesis 37:36

Do I ever consider what will happen to my family a hundred years from now?  If I’m wise, I will remember the story of Isaac and Ishmael.  Why bring up them in the story of Joseph?  Because the Midianites is an overlapping term for Ishmaelites, the descendants of Ishmael.

What is really happening here is this ~ Joseph was sold to blood relatives.  If ancestry.com had existed, and if everyone involved had done a genealogy study, they would have discovered that they were related.  Did the slave traders know that they purchased their own flesh and blood?  No way.

Ishmael was once the favored son of Abraham; a firstborn and an heir.  But through no fault of his own, he found himself in disfavor once Isaac was born.  He and his mother, Hagar, were turned away to an unforgiving desert existence.  God did not forget them and they not only were spared, but went on to prosper.  Ishmael had 12 sons and they populated much of the Middle East.

Who did God use to get Joseph to Egypt?  Ishmael’s descendants.  In God’s grand redemptive narrative, there are unexpected twists and turns that are really quite stunning.  Even though family plots are complicated, God’s purposes are never thwarted.  As badly as we can mess things up, God is never stumped in how to save, how to redeem, and how to accomplish what was written before time.

Joseph couldn’t appreciate what his slavery meant.  Neither can we.  But consider how rich his worship was at the end of his life.  As he looked back, he could see the threads of God’s glory throughout his own storyline.  Amazed, his view of God had to be enlarged beyond comprehension.

Can I trust God enough today with the seeming dead ends, tragedies, and unresolved conflicts in my own life?  I cannot even begin to imagine how He will work with the dark threads of my own story to bring about another Joseph-kind of narrative worth reading.

On the way to Egypt, Joseph lay in the back of a caravan.  He was bound, dirty, nameless, and despairing.  Later, he was crowned royalty, given a new name to match his level of leadership, and went on to save his entire nation from extinction.  Oh, the difference of a few decades.

What often casts me into unbelief is downright ludicrous.  Bind me to the miracles of my spiritual ancestors.  Amen

“CAN’T YOU HEAR YOUR BROTHER CRYING?”

And they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it. Then they sat down to eat. Genesis 37:25-25a

               A group of grown men seized their own flesh and blood brother, stripped him, threw him into a pit, and then commenced to sit down and eat a meal. They were immune to the despair they inflicted. It’s unconscionable, or is it?

              Consider how callousness starts. Brothers and sisters, even very young, reach out to hit their sibling and discover a surprising sense of glee when they realize they can make them cry. Good parents come and try to instill empathy. “What you did hurt your sister. Tell her you’re sorry!” And yet, the apology is hard to muster. Cruelty is in our fallen nature.

               How will I develop keen sensitivity to others’ pain? How will I feel another’s sadness when I see pools of tears in their eyes? How will I feel enough remorse when my need for revenge caused me to injure someone beyond human repair? How will I come to regret an angry outburst against my child when I hear him whimpering in his room? Without God, callouses of my heart grow thicker with the years. I can hear weeping and still walk away unmoved.

               But with God, I am affected and changed by His Spirit that lives inside. When I see someone’s pain, His compassion rises up and challenges me to express it. When I wound another with my angry words, His Spirit convicts me and opens my eyes to see the damage. In this life, I will continue to sin but when I do, I will feel how God feels about it and try to quickly make things right.

               As I’m writing this, I’m suddenly aware that I can be callous to God’s tears. Does knowing that I will hurt Him cause me to sin less? Or do I avoid sin because I hate the consequences? That should be a side issue. What should deter me is knowing that my sin hurts my relationship with Jesus.

               So, how difficult is it to apologize to Jesus when I’ve hurt Him? Excusing or rationalizing my behavior creates spiritual callouses. The cure is to spend time in the presence of God. Being near Him will sharpen my recognition of good and evil and give me the tender, teachable spirit of a toddler. Spiritual regeneration is when God turns back the clock to transform the person with a hardened heart of stone into a person with childlike sensitivities. At rebirth, I am putty in His hands as He begins to awaken my heart to beat like His.

Keep nudging me, Jesus. Keep asking, “Do you see it? Do You feel it?” Make me more aware of what moves you. Amen

WHO DOES SUCH THINGS?!

         Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened to him. Genesis 37:26-27

         Older brothers sell their younger brother into slavery for money. The thought is repelling. I’m naïve to believe that only ancient cultures are this brutal.

         Several years ago, when a poor family in Cambodia accepted money from loan sharks, they believed they had only one way to pay what was demanded. They took their 12-year-old daughter, Kieu, to a local hospital. Doctors issued her a ‘certificate of virginity’. Her parents then delivered her to a hotel, where a man raped her for two days. Kieu fled her home many years later to find a safe house.

         “That’s in Cambodia!” many say. Consider Atlanta. Atlanta’s illegal sex trade has grown to 290 million dollars. Some of these children were kidnapped but some were sold to sex traffickers by family members.

         How hard does a heart have to be a sell a child? This kind of hardheartedness is not the momentary kind. The conscience of a family member who does such a thing died a slow death years ago. Child victims like Joseph all say the same thing. The worst pain is not the pain inflicted by strangers. It is the searing agony they experience because their family betrayed them.

         For over two decades, Joseph will have to try to process his brothers’ cruelty. They turned him over to strangers who carted him away as a slave. Never could he have conceived such a plot as he played on the plains of Hebron by day and slept under his father’s favor by night.

         Many will live and die and never experience such betrayal. But for those who do, pursuing God will have rewards the likes most in the church will never experience. To the degree any of us have been hurt, God gives the same capacity to know Him and experience Him. This is redemption. He is the Redeemer.

Man does the unthinkable and I shudder. You did the unthinkable by sending Your Son to die. I tremble in awe. You are my treasure of the darkness. Amen

YOU ARE WHO YOU ARE IN HEAVEN

So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore. Genesis 37:23

         Joseph was stripped of his royal kind of robe. Jesus was stripped of his robe, too. The momentary humiliation didn’t change the destiny or the spiritual identity of either. Jesus stayed in touch with that but I suspect that Joseph did not. History would prove that the brother’s destruction of the robe of many colors and treating their brother like a criminal would do nothing to stop Joseph’s ascension to a royal position in Egypt. Their sin against him only propelled it.

         Jesus was God’s Son whether anyone acknowledged it or not. If the accusation flew that he was only the illegitimate son of Mary, Jesus was still God. When the crowd publicly humiliated him by accusing him of demonic possession, Jesus was still God. When His family eventually turned on Him and believed Him to be mentally unstable, Jesus was still God. When He hung on a Roman cross and died the most degrading death in existence, His spiritual status did not change. Jesus was still God.

         If ever there were a world in which I needed to settle my spiritual identity, it’s this one. It is growing more and more unfriendly to the name of Jesus Christ and anyone who is associated with Him will experience discrimination. If a barb from a parent can lay me low for four decades, how will I survive if a community ostracizes me? If unfair criticism from a local spiritual leader sends me into hiding, how will I sustain the intentional diatribe of non-Christians who are looking for things to mis-represent?

         No ill-treatment in this world can change my status in heaven. Heaven is what counts; it is eternal. Earth should be discounted; it will pass away. Though I am hated here, not one ill feeling comes from the Father who calls me His. While earth bestows the basest kind of shame, God bestows the heavenliest kind of honor.

         The only way to stay in touch with these beautiful realities is to read a Word that is eternal, not temporary. Whatever it says, I can stake on it being true forever and ever. Today, I may be Joseph in a pit. Tomorrow, I will be reigning with Christ.

Every time Jesus was crushed, He looked up until He felt Your favor. I lock my eyes on You. Amen

DO I LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES?

Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.” But when Reuben heard it, he rescued him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father. Genesis 37:20-22

There is a father who will take out his anger on his children today. He will cut them to shreds with a sharp rebuke and they will shrink and go into hiding. He’s done it before. He even saw the damage in their eyes but that did not deter him.

There is a middle-aged woman who will see dreaded circumstances repeat themselves. She will say, “Oh no, not again!” but she will make the same disastrous choice she made the last time. She does not see that God is giving her another chance in order to do something different.

Reuben, for all his faults, did make a different choice. (Although not one that was drastic enough.) He had sinned against his father many times throughout his youth and had experienced the stab in his own heart as he saw his father’s pain. The last offense he committed was sleeping with Bilhah, his father’s concubine. With this fresh in his memory, he will not agree to take the life of Joseph, his father’s favored son. He cannot bear the thought of Jacob’s grief yet again.

Do I really learn from my mistakes? The magical answer is ‘yes’. Who is going to repeatedly put their hand over an open flame? That is naïve. When bad behavior is generational, thoughts of stopping happen long after the deed is done. By default, we live as our fathers did.

Jesus told Nicodemus two critical things. 1.) ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh.’ We are like whom we came from. I am a product of a mother and father and will possess not only their physical characteristics but their holy and sinful bents as well. I will not deviate without spiritual transformation. And, 2.) ‘That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.’ I am to be like by new Father because I was born of His Word and His Spirit. So here’s the question that replays in my mind? Am I more like my new Father than my earthly parents? I should be if the new birth and the things of the Spirit are nurtured.

How does this relate to learning from my mistakes? When I repeat the foolishness of my youth, the Spirit of God calls to me. “Why are you doing that? You’re now my own daughter and I’m calling you out to be like me, not them.” Past mistakes are a mirror. I see the reflection of my former self against the reflection of my brother, Jesus, standing next to me. With just a glance, I walk away and have no appetite for the former things.

Forget my last name today, Lord. I am Christine – of God’s heart. Amen

HOW DO OTHERS EXPERIENCE ME?

Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?” Genesis 37:9-10

            Joseph shared his first dream with his brothers and it didn’t go well. They despised him for it. Didn’t he notice their reaction? Didn’t their rejection of him make an impact on his heart? Why in the world would he tell the second dream to this same unreceptive audience?   Perhaps in his enthusiasm, he just couldn’t help himself.

            When I’m excited about something, the need to tell someone is strong. I want those I love to share the joy with me. But I can share my jewels indiscriminately and experience the same kind of reaction Joseph got from his family. I repeatedly put myself in a setting where rejection is going to be the outcome. I do this for a couple of reasons. 1.) My need for approval is so strong that discretion goes out the door. And, 2.) I suffer from magical thinking. “This time they’ll listen!”

            Becoming a person of self-awareness is critical if I’m going to be successful in relationships. Do others receive my words and stories eagerly? Is my point of view welcomed? What is the track record with these people? If Joseph had considered what happened when he related his first dream, perhaps he would have stopped himself before sharing the second. Timing was everything but maybe the power of rejection urged him to speak prematurely. He needed them to value him as much as God did. I can be so much like Joseph. If I know something, I just have to say it.

            There are some things I believe passionately and I’m tempted to keep speaking them to the same group of people. So far, they haven’t listened. Truth be told, they may be rolling their eyes when I start my speech for the umpteenth time. They are closed to me and it would be wise for me to acknowledge that. A season of quietness and prayerfulness is needed. God needs to heal the rejection my soul suffers. He also needs to show me if my words are framed by a need to be right. That repels people. What I speak may be true but no one will hear it if it comes with ‘attitude’.

            No mission is more important than being God’s spokesman. Getting the message right is only half the challenge though. Getting the timing and attitude right will cause the words to roll off my tongue the way Jesus would speak them. There may still be rejection but at least I’ll know it’s the message they’re rejecting and not me.

            So, what do I do with my need to be liked, respected, validated and accepted? Prior to any speeches, I take my needs to the One who makes me whole in His presence.

Put a watch on my tongue until it’s time for me to speak. Amen

 

 

 

TAUNTING

He said to them, “Hear this dream that I have dreamed: Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf.” His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?”   Genesis 37:6-8

         Rhetorical questions in scripture are posed by someone incredulous. Consider the brothers’ outrage? Time answered the question with more than a touch of irony. In Genesis 41:43, Pharaoh set Joseph in the chariot behind his and called out to the people, “You’ve got to be kidding, Joseph. You mean to tell us that you’re going to rule over us?” “Bow the knee!”

The Philistines laughed and posed their rhetorical questions to Saul about the absurdity of a small boy, unarmed, taking on their Goliath. Chief priests, Pharisees, and the likes of Pilate posed similar questions to Jesus about His claim to be a King.

All the questions follow a similar theme and are answered by a God who reminds us that He is not predictable and nothing is impossible when He is behind it. He uses the foolish, the uneducated, the weak, the stuttering, the outnumbered, the shamed, the forgotten, the underdog, and the smallest…..to glorify His name.

Let me bring this home to each of us today. Who is laughing at you? Perhaps you’ve heard rhetorical questions already today. “Who do you think you are!” When God’s child knows that he is called, loved, blessed, and empowered by the Spirit of God, such confidence offends most. It can even rub against the grain of those in the church.

There is always an irony. No one should be threatened. Each of us is called, loved, empowered, and invited into a holy confidence if we are willing to do the hard spiritual work that precedes it. Few love God enough to seek Him on that level though. Instead, spiritual laziness abounds. God’s children feel entitled to the blessing, like Joseph’s brothers, without having to engage in the spiritual disciplines.

For each who has been taunted today, know you are in good company. Do not let any man steal your confidence. Time will write your story and silence the voice of every accuser. Walk humbly with your God and that doesn’t mean apologetically.

Do not let accusers undo me. Amen