Dysfunctional family, gracious God, faithful walk, spiritual forbears
By Dean Collins
Bad decisions, family tensions, sibling rivalry, lies, jealousy, theft, threats, self-determination, and abuse. Any group of people demonstrating that set of characteristics need to discover God! Is it possible to have any influence on people with such a toxic mix of unsavory attributes? How in the world can we love and help those so broken and lost? Well, for starters we need to remember that these characteristics are the description of God’s chosen family. We find all of these negative and sinful behaviors in the lives of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, including their wives and children.
Paul was right that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. His words ring true now and all the way back to Genesis where we discover our faith heritage. All through scripture we discover that God’s chosen were flawed, often sinned, rebelled, and eventually discovered God’s path for their salvation that leads to ours.
Conniving and worse
If you want a perfect role model would you choose Abraham, Issac, or Jacob? Or maybe Sarah, Rebecca, or Rachel? If you read even casually, you quickly discover that everyone in the patriarchal family of faith did some conniving and worse. The acorns do not fall very far from the family tree.
Consider Esau and Jacob. If we had to choose, I suppose we would pick Jacob, the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. After all, Esau was a bit of a rebel. He married two Hittite women after growing up in a family where there were clear examples from his grandfather and father that you marry inside the family and not outside. Genesis 26:34-35 tell us that this decision made life miserable for Isaac and Rebekah. It is no wonder that Rebekah would then scheme with Jacob to deceive Isaac when he was going to receive the father’s blessing.
Distrust of God and others
Reading Genesis chapters 26-33, we see that God continued to offer help and even blessing to this family in spite of their dysfunctional relationships with each other and their off-and-on appearance of trust in God as their source of wisdom and life.
Jacob especially had trust issues with his parents and with his brother. And yet God revealed himself to Jacob after he deceived his father and pretended to be Esau. God showed Jacob favor through his 20 years with his father-in-law. Fear was a constant companion of Jacob as he journeyed through life. And just as he escaped his father-in-law’s unfair treatment, we learn that Esau is on the way to meet him surrounded by an army of 400 men!
Jacob had hoped to buy his brother’s favor with gifts. He must have thought he would be giving back to Esau the equivalent of what he took when he deceived their father. Jacob may not have known the price of reconciliation and forgiveness, but his opening offer was as follows: 200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 female camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys.
Jacob’s servants were sent ahead of him so that Esau would see these gifts and hopefully treat Jacob and his family with kindness. Jacob is relieved to see his brother’s warmth and apparent change of heart. Esau at one time was planning on killing his brother and now is offering him the opportunity to live in harmony. Jacob was relieved, but his trust issues kept him from full reconciliation.
Love and forgiveness
There is so much we can learn from these stories, but maybe the overwhelming gift to us from this section of Genesis is that God never gives up on us. Even with our off-and-on spurts of trust and obedience, God continues to offer us love and forgiveness. It is still his plan to use broken folks like us to share the story of redemption and transformation with those we meet every day.
Lord, we are often quick to judge others’ imperfections and look past our own. We ask forgiveness for thinking ourselves better than others. We ask that you renew our strength and fill us with your Spirit so that we might walk faithfully with you, sharing your grace and mercy today with someone you send our way. We are overwhelmed with gratitude that you allow us to be a part of your family and use us as ambassadors of your kingdom.
Your time with God’s Word
Genesis 27:1-13, 18-27, 30-38, 41-46; 28:1-22; 31:18-55; 32:1-31; 33:1-20 NLT
Photo by Keira Burton at pexels.com
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