DISASTERS AND DREAMS
Opening Prayer
Gracious Lord, to be with You is to be at home. The very idea of family was born out of the fellowship of the Holy Trinity. Thank You for our families.
Read GENESIS 37:1–11
Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.
2 This is the account of Jacob’s family line.
Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made an ornate robe for him. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: 7 We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
8 His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.
9 Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”
10 When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
“Independence from relationship is independence from God himself, for he is present in his body; it is also independence from the way he has designed us to grow” (Henry Cloud; see Eph. 4:15,16). Families are also growth workshops!
Even at its best, family life is a classroom for learning how to handle intimate and demanding relationships. Sadly, most of us bear bruises from the combat along the way: strained relationships and domestic breakdown, divided loyalties and sibling rivalry, parental alienation and the challenge of blended families are not just the stuff of celebrity gossip and social workers. Disappointment may touch us personally. It also affects our communities and churches.
So we can identify with some of the emotions and tensions at the outset of Joseph’s story. He could write the textbook on dysfunctional families: Jacob, his father, had two sister wives who vied for appreciation and love; two maids had been thrown into the ensuing childbearing competition, and, in turn, half-brothers and sisters perpetuated the scars of struggle and jostled for significance. Characteristically an active man, Jacob was strangely oblivious, even passive, in his household’s brawls. Ignoring his own personal damage from parental favoritism, Jacob doted on Joseph, the long-awaited son of Rachel, his favorite wife, who died when Joseph was young.
Is it very surprising that Joseph appears so spoiled and tactless? Surely, he is yet another disaster waiting to happen. He may have been his father’s pet, but how else is a motherless teenager to compete with macho older brothers? While they sweat on the farm, he irons his smart coat and dreams of being kingpin. His costume, tale-telling and eloquent boasts become increasingly inflammatory. His dreams would have been interpreted as divine messages of what was to come. Joseph, like us, wears the garments of his upbringing and struggles. Our dreams too may foment family conflict, but we are not cast aside because of our imperfections. God uses unlikely candidates to realize his plans. In his big story, our flawed relationships and personality will not have the last word.
Apply
Would you want Joseph as a brother? Why or why not? Where are you battling with envy? How would you like to see that change?
Closing prayer
Understanding God, teach me sensitivity, patience, forgiveness and reconciliation in my family situation.
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