Tag Archives: Genesis

Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob is now entering center stage and his story tells us it’s not always a pleasant place to stand. So right out of the gate, I’m going to throw this out there…

We are part of God’s plan of redemption. Just because the place we are in is unpleasant, perhaps even painful, does not mean that it is not a good place in the plan of God.

His brothers thought he was boasting about dreams of them bowing down to him. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t, but either way, it was not what it seemed. Those prophetic dreams were not simply of Joseph ruling over his family, but of Joseph being positioned to save his family.

Jacob believed his favorite son had been killed, but it was not as it seemed. The blood on his tunic did not mean Joseph was dead, but that his brothers were covering up their own sin. His son was not only alive, but being positioned by God to bring repentance from those same brothers so they could experience forgiveness.

Those dreams Joseph had didn’t tell the whole story. He would come into a royal position of power and yes, his brothers would bow down to him, but it would all come at a cost. Because things aren’t always as they seem.

In Josephs’ story we see a boy who becomes a man in the house of Egypt, a man who clearly had the favor of God on him. Until it looked like he didn’t. In the very next chapter, he went from the penthouse to the prison in a day.

We tend to see our circumstances through a particular lens and that lens is almost always focused in on us. Our suffering is ours and it hurts and it can feel unjust, or at least unfair.

It is an act of faith to see it differently.

Joseph comes across as a boastful 17 year old brat. The favored son who rubbed it in the faces of the sons who were not favored. But that is not why Joseph went through what he did.

He was part of the plan of redemption, both his mountaintops and his valleys. Even his brothers were part of the plan. Think of what needed to happen in order for Joseph to end up as second in command in Egypt.

• He had to have been sent to check on his brothers that day.

• When he didn’t find them where he thought they were, he had to keep going, rather than just go home to tell his father he couldn’t find them.

• His brothers had to hate him enough to want him dead.

• Two different brothers had to intervene to thwart the plan to kill him.

• The Ishmaelite caravan had to come by when it did, and they had to decide to sell Joseph as a slave.

• That Ishmaelite caravan had to be heading to Egypt.

The rest of the story is for another day and another chapter, but you see the point I’m making, I’m sure.

All is providence, not coincidence.

We have a God who is good, who is always for us. We know that His plans and His purposes are not only good, but they cannot be thwarted. He is in the details of our lives. He sees, He hears, and He knows. His arm is mighty to save. He is a God who saves whole families, because He is all about the generations. He knows the beginning from the end and in the fullness of time, He moves. He is a God of redemption, and His plans are redemptive in nature, and victory is always His. He does not know defeat. Ever.

So. Take a look around you. Hold your pain and your fear and your shaken life up to the light of all that you know of God.

I am believing that my current struggle and pain are part of something that is bigger than me. It doesn’t really make it less painful, but it does make it less about me and more about God. And that is what I’m after. Less of me, more of Him.

What about you? What are you after? Are you able to view your current, or past, circumstances from the lens of what God is doing in the bigger picture? Have you seen how something you’ve gone through was used to accomplish something in your life or in the lives of others?

It’s a hard perspective to grasp onto, I admit. I don’t always do it well, and I bet Joseph didn’t either. Our pain is our pain and sometimes only hindsight can see it as any good. I’d love to pray for you around this topic, so you can either drop it in the comments, or contact me via my contact page, and I promise, I will pray for you.

I have a Facebook group that is going through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. This post is the discussion and comments from the day we looked at Genesis, chapter 36.

My commentary:

“First, let’s go back to the end of chapter 35. We see Esau back on the scene, as he and Jacob bury their father. I buried my own father [in 2018], and as happened when I buried my mother, wounds of the past rose to the surface. Things that had long been buried in my soul came up as I mourned the deaths of such pivotal people in my life. Thankfully, I knew where to go with my wounds, and God brought healing through my grieving.

I can’t help but wonder what came up for both Jacob and Esau as they buried Isaac.

Now, on to chapter 36, where Esau and his descendants are in the spotlight.These are the generations of Esau the father of the Edomites in the hill country of Seir. Let’s look at the Edomites. Below are notes I found in my study:

• The Edomites worshiped a variety of gods
• In Numbers 20 the Israelites requested permission to pass through Edom during its 40-year wilderness journey. This request was denied.
• King Saul attacked the Edomites and King David made them servants 40 years later.
• Between the Old and New Testament times, the Edomites were once again controlled by the Jews and forced to embrace Judaism.
• The Edomites became known as the Idumaeans
• King Herod was an Idumaean and ruled at the time of the birth of Jesus; he also commanded the deaths of all males two years old and under in Bethlehem in order to kill the threat of a Jewish king.

So, today I discovered this: From Jacob, the Messiah came. From Esau, came the king who would try to kill Him before His time.

Comments/Discussion:

• “Wow, so interesting…Edom {a/k/a Esau} really ended up going in the opposite direction of his father and Jacob/Israel. It amazes me that the offer to pay Edom and not drink even their water, only wanting to walk through on foot was denied or they would be attacked! Unfortunately, this is no different than what goes on in families today. You can raise your children all the same but they choose their own path. Parents that don’t walk in faith can have children who choose to walk in faith.

• “Genealogies! One father, two brothers. It is interesting to consider the legacy of Esau, the man who chose his immediate needs over his future birthright. He also chose ungodly women to bear his children. Esau sowed ungodly seed and bore ungodly fruit in his children and their generations. It’s been years since I read it, but I immediately thought of the multigenerational comparison of Jonathan Edwards and Max Jukes. (You can Google it.) Edwards was a Puritan preacher in the 1700s who had a godly wife and 11 children. He spent an hour each day conversing with his family and then praying a blessing over each child. In his family line, he had 13 college presidents, 65 college professors, 75 military officers, 80 public servants, 60 authors, 60 doctors, 30 judges, 100 pastors, 100 lawyers, 3 US senators, and a Vice-President. Max Jukes was a prison inmate whose family line was researched in 1877. His descendants included 7 murderers, 60 thieves, 190 prostitutes, 150 other convicts, 310 paupers, and 440 others who were wrecked by addiction to alcohol. Of the 1,200 studied, 300 died prematurely. The Five-Generation Rule: “How a parent raises their child—the love they give, the values they teach, the emotional environment they offer, the education they provide—influences not only their children but the four generations to follow, either for good or evil.” 

• “soooooooooo are the children’s teeth set on edge because the parents have eaten sour grapes?”

• “Are you asking if the father’s sins bring punishment on the children today? I wanted to jump in and just give my thoughts on that: I do not believe that children are punished by God because of the sins of their parents. I DO, however, believe that children absolutely live in the effect of their parents’ sins. I think [the previous] comment went toward the fact that how we parent our kids affects the generations beyond them. Not because God is bringing punishment, but because there is a cause and effect principle that runs through generations.”

• “Family and legacy- so important. But it requires diligent, intentional effort on the part is us, the parents, and grandparents to pass that legacy on.”

• “So often people say “I can do anything I want. I’m not hurting anyone else.” Five Generations of people are affected by our decisions. That is major responsibility.”

• “I made a decision early on that I would break the cycle of abuse that I experienced in my family so that my children would not see that ugly head arise. When they were old enough to understand I told them my story and we grew closer as a family because of it. God began healing everything around me as I grew even closer to Him. Only God can break cycles of abuse or whatever is keeping you from Him! This chapter again makes me want to grab a big poster board and make a family tree. I’ve always wondered why God felt it necessary to have chapters with so much genealogy. I’m still working on understanding.”

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Why did I decide to share this in a blog post? So that I could share these thoughts with you:

1. If we use it right, Facebook can be an asset and not just a warzone or a place to show off our pets or what we ate that day. Facebook can help build up the Body of Christ.
2. There are currently 50 members in the group, with only a small handful commenting. But, there are many who come to the table every other day when I post a commentary, and they listen to the virtual conversation and receive encouragement and teaching.
3. Most importantly, women are taking in the Word of God on a regular basis, when they otherwise may not.
4. You don’t have to be a biblical scholar to lead a bible study. I almost always incorporate The Torah Lesson on each chapter we’ve studied so far. You can check that out HERE. Why? Because I’m not a bible scholar, but I found someone who is, and we glean from him. But the primary purpose of “coming to the table” each time, is to share what God is speaking to each of us through His Word. Bringing our thoughts, our questions, and our encouragement from the time we’ve spent reading that day’s chapter.

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In a recent sermon at my church, the pastor asked the question, “what breaks your heart?”. What is it that makes something rise up in you to say “this cannot continue”? I went home and for a couple of days, I pondered that question with God until I knew the answer.

What breaks my heart is Christians who do not know the truth of God’s Word. People who profess Christ, but continue to live lives that are based on lies, because they haven’t learned the truth, and they haven’t learned the truth because they do not open the Bible for themselves. They rely on sermons and podcasts and daily devotions to be their food, but we were not meant to live on regurgitated messages. We live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Sermons and other messages are good, and helpful for our edification and encouragement, and even our teaching. But there is no substitute for the living, active, sharp Word of God going into your mind and into your heart. None.

I find it heartbreaking that so many of God’s children are content to nibble on crumbs, when they’ve been invited to a feast.

After I understood what breaks my heart, I was undone by the fact that God knew it and gave me a way to do something about it, even though I didn’t realize that’s what was happening when I started the Facebook group those years ago.

By the way, there are tons of Facebook bible studies out there and many of them are open to the public. I’m just sharing my experience, with my perspective, because, well, my blog.

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Q & A:

• Why is your Facebook group a closed group?

Because the purpose is to minister to those in the Church. If the group becomes public, then I will find myself attempting to manage trolls, and even sincere people who are not believers. I know my limits, and I know the people I am called to in this particular season and environment.

• How do I start this kind of group?

I sent an invitation to everyone on my friends list that I knew was a believer. Those who wanted to join, joined. And then a few of those people invited their friends, with the understanding that inviting others was fine, as long as they were believers, for the reason stated above. BUT…maybe YOUR heart breaks for those who are seekers, for those you do not yet know Him but want to explore the scriptures. If that’s the case, then form a group around that!

What breaks your heart? What do you see as you look around that causes something in your to say “this cannot continue like this”? Bring the question to God and He will begin to reveal it. Maybe the action you are to take won’t have anything to do with a social media platform. But then again…maybe it will.

“God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” 

Bethel. “House of El” or “House of God”. It is the place where God revealed Himself to Jacob, the place where Jacob heard God’s voice.

Get up. Go to the house of God and live there. Stop coming and going. Stop visiting. Stop going around it. Make your dwelling in My presence. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” Remain in the place of revelation. Stay where you hear My voice.

“So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, ‘Put away the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and change your garments.'”

Put away your sin. Return to purity. Clothe yourself in Christ. “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires…”  …“put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Change your garments, beloved. You are coming to the place of God’s presence. He is holy and His presence is holy and you have been called to be holy with Him.

“…for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.”

“So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears. Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree that was near Shechem.”

He hid them rather than destroy them. We are not much different. It’s time to dig up what we’ve buried because hidden sin does not stay hidden. Eventually, it will surface and bring destruction with it. We are called to destroy our sin, not tuck it away somewhere, hoping no one finds it. “Therefore, put to death what belongs to your worldly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry.”  

Jacob’s stay at the physical Bethel was temporary, but our call to the spiritual “El Bethel” is not. I believe we are at a crossroads at the moment, and many of God’s people will be faced with a decision. We cannot continue to keep one foot in two different kingdoms. A line will be drawn and we must choose which side of that line we will take our stand on.

The call is to rise up and return to the presence of God. Put away carnal, idolatrous living. Deal death blows to your sin, put on Christ, and come back to the revelation and the voice of God.

Get up. Return to Bethel.

John 15:4; Ephesians 4:22; 1 Peter 1:16; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:5

“Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.  But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’” – vs. 11-12

Jacob gave himself the best chance he could. He was afraid of what Esau would do, so he divided his family and his herds into two groups, so that if one was attacked, at least the other group would escape.

For I am afraid. But You have said.

It’s the tension we live, isn’t it? Our circumstance that pulls against the promise of God. The fear that makes us come up with a contingency plan, in case “but You have said” doesn’t happen. It’s a plan to save ourselves from what we fear – having less, loneliness, emotional pain, insignificance, you-name-it-we-fear-it.

In case God won’t save us.

Jacob knew God had made a promise – “I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.“.

But Jacob also knew that Esau had every reason to hate him and want to kill him. His contingency plan was formed from the fear that what could happen would overpower what God said would happen.

Maybe your contingency plan is something you can wrap your hands around, something you can put on paper. But maybe the plan is something way more subtle in its deception.

Resignation.

Why is it so deceiving? Because it looks like surrender and Jesus followers know that surrender is a good thing. But resignation is not surrender, it is actually at the opposite end of the motivation stick.

Surrender is motivated by faith. Resignation (and every other contingency plan) is motivated by fear. And most of us do not know our own hearts well enough to know the motives that are moving us. But God does.

The question is always going to be, are we willing to allow God to reveal what is really going on in our hearts? Our freedom from fear (or anything else, really) hinges on the answer to that question. We have to be willing to look at what motivates us at our core, so that our contingency plans can be scrapped and our resignation can become true surrender to the goodness and faithfulness of a God who keeps His word.

Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.”

Isaac told his son not to marry a Canaanite woman, but to take a wife from his mother’s family. So Jacob left to go find a wife among his own people. Now, twenty years later, he is finally released to go back. He now has two wives and a lot of flocks- all obtained from a father-in-law who cheated him, tricked him and treated him unjustly all those years.

Oh, now there’s a word for someone ~ You may have arrived empty-handed and had to stay much longer than you planned, and you may have endured mistreatment while you were there, but one day God will call you back out, and you will not leave empty. You will come out with plunder. You will come out with far more than you went in to get.

Jacob obeyed his father and it was harder than he thought it would be. And I want to just go stand next to him and link arms. Because some days obeying my Father is so much harder than I thought it would be too.

But I see something else in this chapter...

Laban’s sons looked at Jacob’s wealth in the form of sheep & goats, and they said that wealth should have been Laban’s (and by implication, theirs) (Vs. 1). Rachel & Leah both believed that their father had spent all of “their” money. (Vs. 14-16) Laban claimed that his daughters and his grandchildren, as well as Jacob’s flocks, all belonged to him. (Vs. 43)

Part of the sin nature we are born with is the desire to “own”, to have, to claim something (everything) for ourselves. To have, to hold onto, to keep. Building our kingdoms, and filling our pockets. Obsessed with what is ours.

Enter Jesus with His salvation and cleansing blood and His upside down ways.

And now we’re invited to give everything away, including ourselves. “Follow Me” means we walk away from our kingdom to help Him build His. Earthly treasures have lost their value. The desire to make more money takes a step back as making disciples steps forward.

Grace and love have changed our minds and our dreams and our destiny. Our inheritance is secure so we are free to decrease, to go low, to open our hands and live that way.

Let us not be found fighting for what is ours. I pray we will be more prone to giving than we are to keeping, because we know that this world has nothing for us.

All that is ours is in Christ.

They were sisters. Family. And now, this thing between Leah and Rachel has become almost too hard to watch. And let’s be clear about what it is we are watching.

Two women hurting each other because of a desire to have what the other one has. To be fair, we’re not talking about a favorite shirt or a boyfriend. The wants in these women go deep and desperate. One wanted love, the other wanted children. Hard things to want and not have, especially when someone else is getting them.

This rivalry – the envy, and jealousy- it isn’t just a bible story, it’s a human story. Because someone will always have something we want, something we can’t have.

Let’s pull in a little closer. I see some things and I think I want you to see them with me.

Leah saw Jacob’s love for Rachel as her (Leah’s) failure to be worthy of love. So she did what women do – she tried to become worthy. She had no way of knowing that Jacob’s love of Rachel had nothing to do with Leah. That boy was destined to be smitten with that girl and nothing was going to change it.

On the other hand, Leah’s ability to bear sons was seen by Rachel as a glaring reminder of her own inability to do the same. It made her desperate. How much healing would happen if we understood one simple truth –

Someone else’s abundance is not my lack. Their victory is not my defeat. Their blessing is not my curse. Their good fortune is not my bad luck. (Seriously. I could go on all day, but I think we get it.)

Envy and jealousy are the children of comparison and those kids take everything personally. For most of us today (Sister Wives excluded), we aren’t comparing ourselves to our husband’s other wife. You know, the pretty one. It’s not that up close and in our face, unless we put it there. Oh Lord, can we stop putting it there?! The younger women in my life – here’s my Titus 2 moment for you:

If you can’t scroll through social media without comparing, delete your social media. Because comparison is destructive to your soul, to your home, to your relationships. Deal with it like the enemy it is.

We are rarely the only victims of our comparisons. I wonder if Leah’s sons knew that her hope of being loved was pinned to them. Or that they were the source of Rachel’s pain.

Love wasn’t enough for Rachel and children weren’t enough for Leah and their story is our story. We continue to compare because we continue to measure our worth by what we lack. The collateral damage can be heartbreaking.

Jacob surely felt the sting of knowing his love wasn’t enough for Rachel. And don’t you think Leah’s sons knew they were not enough for Leah. Each woman longed for something other than what was in front of them.

This too is our story, and we’re the only ones who can change the narrative. Maybe we should look around at those who are with us, the ones who are loving us and serving us and putting up with us and let three words. And they are not the ones you think they will be..

Jesus is enough

You probably are not, nor were you meant to be. But Jesus will always be enough in you, and through you.

Such an intriguing chapter. It’s a love story, payback story, and kindness of God story all rolled into one.

Jacob met the love of his life in Rachel, and paid a steep price to marry her.

“Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my kinsman, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?” ^…

...Jacob loved Rachel. And he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”

Seven years is a long time. But not as long as fourteen, which is what he ended up serving, because, well, weak-eyed Leah.

Jacob found his true love but his father-in-law pulled a fast one on him and he eventually ended up with both daughters as wives. The deceiver was deceived and I have to say, “touche, Laban, touche”.

If you’re a bit behind in the story, Jacob tricked his brother, Esau, into giving up his inheritance for a bowl of stew, and deceived his father into giving him the first born’s blessing. So I can’t help but smile as justice is served up by Laban.

But all of that pales next to what God did for Leah. The unloved, unchosen Leah.

I know how that feels, and the desperation it births. I think there’s a lot of us who know exactly what Leah may have felt, and her thoughts of maybe now I’ll be loved. Maybe this time. Maybe I’ve done enough, maybe I’ve been good enough. Maybe now.

But I also know this next part. The unfathomable goodness of God. The wonder of Him who knows my thoughts and my feels and my pain. I know the God who moves on my behalf to show me a love I could not have imagined.

In a culture that scorns a barren woman, God opened Leah’s womb wide. In a culture that values sons over daughters, God gave her six sons. The tribe of Judah would become the worship leaders, and the line of priests would come from Levi. The others would become the heads of their own tribes.

Leah never received the love she wanted from Jacob, but she was lavished with love all the same. The love of a God who looked down on a woman who was no one’s choice, and chose her.

Yet with each son, she hoped for Jacob’s love to be hers.

Sometimes, the thing we want the most we will not possess until the love of God becomes what we want the most. Until we realize that we have a champion, a Father who loves us. A God who has chosen us.

Until finally, we come to rest in the love of God.

“And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she ceased bearing.”

We wear ourselves out chasing down something that will never be ours, until finally, we see that what we already have is so much more than what we’ve chased after.

This is the story of us, and the God who sees us, who loves us, who chooses us.