Everything Is Against Me!

Oh, what a limited view we have of what God is doing in our lives.  "All these things are against me," cried Jacob in Genesis 42:36.  "What was against him?" you might ask.  Well, Jacob had been living under the belief that his second youngest son--his pride and joy, Joseph, had been killed by some vicious animal.  Now, he and his family were in the middle of a famine, and they were having trouble putting food on the table.  So he sent his sons to a foreign country to see if they could buy some food.  But when they got there, one of Jacob's sons, Simeon, was arrested and put into jail on charges of being a spy.  And the only way that Simeon was going to be released from jail was if his family could prove that he was not lying about having a younger brother.  As such, when Jacob's sons got home and told him about all that had happened and that they would not allow Jacob's family to buy food anymore until they proved that Simeon had a younger brother, Jacob was distraught and cried out: "All these things are against me."  But were they really?  In reality, God was about to bless Jacob's socks off.  For Jacob's son (the one he thought had been killed by an animal) actually had been elevated by God to second in charge in that entire country.  He wasn't dead; rather, he was alive, well, powerful, and prospering.  And now God was going to uncover Jacob's eyes and reveal what He had been doing for the past few years.  So learn the lesson that I am sure Jacob would have told you himself: stop whining like a baby when looking at your apparent circumstances.  Yes, it may look like everything is going against you, but God is at work, and He will reveal, in His time, what He has been doing in your life.  Put simply, you know that He is good, so start living like it and quit the whining.

Judah? Not My Choice!

Quick: whose idea was it to sell his brother, Joseph, as a slave?  Okay, okay, so the title gave it away: Judah.  Okay, pop quiz number two: whose two oldest sons were killed by God?  You're on a roll, now.  Yes, it was Judah, again.  Let's see if you can make it three out of three: which man got his daughter-in-law pregnant because he mistook her for a prostitute?  Did you guess Judah?  I hope so, at least if you want to get an "A" on this test.  Now if you were God, and you knew all of the above about Judah (and probably a lot more), who would you pick of the 12 patriarchs to be in the line of the Messiah?  Probably the most likely choice would be Joseph, for he seemingly never did anything wrong, and, despite all his misfortunes, he ended up the second in command in Egypt and was used dramatically by God.  But God chose to place Judah, and not Joseph, in the Messianic line.  And it wasn't through his third son, Shelah, that the seed passed, but, rather, it was through his little get together with his daughter-in-law that the seed passed.  "Wait a minute," some might say, "I know that Mary's husband's line is listed in the Book of Matthew, so, technically, his seed didn't pass to Jesus."  Okay, you got me.  You're right.  Judah's seed did pass to Mary's husband, Joseph.  But when you flip your Bible a few more pages to the right, you will see that the seed of Judah (and his son by Tamar, Perez) was in the direct line of Mary, too.  What does this speak of?  A little thing known as grace.  Imagine that--God took Judah's most embarrassing act of his life and wrapped it in his grace.  But do you know what is truly interesting?  During his lifetime, Judah had no clue of what God was doing.  Which begs the question: do you think we are in for a few surprises when we die?  I think so.  And I think that the surprises will be laden with grace.