Peace

• Which memory is harder to shake: Rejection or guilt?

For me, it's guilt. I've had to deal with rejection before, and while it's not fun, you can at least attribute that to the actions of someone else. It's much harder to deal with when I am the one who screwed up! That's the kind of stuff that keeps me awake at night and causes me to lose weight (the wrong way--I tend to lose my appetite when I'm stressed).

• Which is harder to accept: Mercy or judgment?

Wow! That's quite a question! I must admit that judgment may be easier to accept. Humans tend to be able to take what they deserve (good or bad). What we struggle with is getting what we don't deserve. If we are treated unfairly, our hackles raise. If we are treated well when we should have been treated badly... well, we often don't know how to react or process it.

Read Genesis 50:15-21. It's the story of Joseph reassuring his brothers (after their father's death) that he wasn't going to pay them back for the wrongs they did. It's the story of undeserved mercy.

The brothers were afraid. "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?" (verse 15).

What do we do when we're really afraid? Pretty much anything we can to escape that which we're afraid of.

"Your father left these instructions before he died: 'This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." (verse 16-17).

Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems like an act of desperation. Genesis 45 paints a picture of a brother that already forgave them and even welcomed them to Egypt. You could read into the whole story a spirit of revenge if you wanted to I suppose, but I just don't see anything very obvious from Genesis 45 onward.

• What do you make of the brothers' fear? Is it justified?
• How does Joseph's story reveal the truth of verses 19-21?

Here's what Sarah Young writes in Jesus Calling.

"If you learn to trust Me--really trust Me--with your whole being, then nothing can separate you from My Peace. Everything you endure can be put to good use by allowing it o train you in trusting Me. This is how you foil the works of evil, growing in grace through the very adversity that was meant to harm you. Joseph was a prime example of this divine reversal, declaring to his brothers: "You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.

"Do not fear what this day, or any day, may bring your way. Concentrate on trusting Me and on doing what needs to be done. Relax in My sovereignty, remembering that I go before you, as well as with you, into each day. Fear no evil, for I can bring good out of every situation you will ever encounter."

Point well made. Joseph had already learned to lean on God. He had already learned to take whatever came his way... judgment or mercy... and "roll with it" in the arms of God. His brothers? Lesson still to be learned. But who better to teach them than the one who already had such experience? In Joseph, the one they persecuted, they saw a man who trusted in God's sovereignty. Now, they could learn to do the same.

• What low lights and highlights come to mind for you when you think of Genesis 50:19-21?
• When have you been tempted to replace God in judging others? In judging yourself?
• What could keep you from walking in God's peace today?

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." (Psalm 23:4)