Unanswered Questions

Anyone who reads through the book of Genesis is caught up in the story of those early patriarchs.  They are the stuff of a good novel.  But, to read Genesis is to also find many questions which have no answers.  The problem is there are questions which we think need to have answers, but, alas, there are none.  For example, we know the reason for the flood in the days of Noah.  The world was a wicked place, but was not this particular response of God a bit too much?  And, then there was the overkill at Sodom and Gomorrah.  Why did God not get upset with Jacob for stealing the birthright?  Of course, the thing that bothers a lot of folks the most is what appears to be the God sanctioned violence?

To read Genesis is to stumble into a lot of good questions.  I remember a guy who in the St. John Church back in my days as its pastor.  He was a young man who spoke of himself as an agnostic.  He came to church only because his wife delivered an ultimatum.  However, when he got there the Lord started working in his heart and before he knew it he was talking about himself as a professing Christian who wanted to be baptized.  Though a new Christian, he still carried his questions with him.  He often said, "I no longer allow my questions to keep me from faith in Christ.  I still have them, but I have put them on the back burner for the time."

As Genesis, or the Old Testament, is read we often come to a moment of wondering how to handle some of the unanswered questions that the Word throws out there for us.  Maybe not being able to figure them out simply speaks to the limited intellect we possess.  Maybe we have them because God is God and not one of us.  Maybe we have them because God wants us to have them.  Maybe my old friend had the best idea as he declared the reality of the back burner in his spiritual search.

Those Famous Words

The Joseph quote most known to so many of us is the one found in the last chapter of Genesis.  After the death of Jacob, Joseph's brother fear that now retribution will fall on their head, but instead in a moment of reconciliation the wronged brother says, "Do not be afraid.  Am I in the place of God?  Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good..."  (Genesis 50:20)  Most likely this was not the song Joseph was singing that day when his brothers pulled him out of a pit and sold him for twenty pieces of silver to some Ishmaelite traders in gum, balm, and human flesh.  On that day it is more likely that he was screaming curses at them!

 

Actually, what was happening was the beginning of something the Lord told Joseph's great grandfather Abraham, "Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years..." (Genesis 15:13)  Of course, Joseph could not see ahead to the day of oppression any more than he could have seen forward on the day he was sold for twenty pieces of silver.  Joseph's changed heart did not happen the first night he spent with the Ishmaelite traders, but sometime along the way between that moment and the moment his brothers came to Egypt seeking relief from the famine.

 

What is ahead we cannot know.  We are often tempted into believing that through our prudent and careful planning we can control our future, but such thinking is an illusion.  God is the One who has the future in His hands.  We will surely see this more clearly as the years and decades go by and by.  Always remember what Joseph said to his brothers was hindsight.  What it takes to face the uncertain and often difficult future is not hindsight, or foresight, but faith. 

Seeing the Face of God

When I left the Tennille United Methodist Church after a two year stint as pastor, I carried with me a lot of resentment and anger.  Things got very difficult during that second year and by the time the dust had cleared, I was eager for a fresh start.  One of those who had been an antagonist came by the parsonage as we were packing and offered an olive branch, but I was not in the mood to receive it.  So, I left angry.  It was several years out from that departure that I realized how much animosity I carried in my heart and with the realization came a breath of forgiveness for those from my past.

 

But, I was in one place and they were in another and there never was any face to face words of reconciliation.  I knew a reconciliation had taken place in my heart because I no longer desired bad things for them, but there was at that point no burning urgency to go back and try to make relationships right again.  It was about fifteen years before that actually happened.  I was invited back to preach and the occasion of the preaching provided a mutual moment of reconciliation.  Maybe earlier was not the right time.  Why it took fifteen years I still do not know.

 

All this came to mind as I was reading the Jacob and Esau moment of reconciliation.  When Jacob left home as a young man, he had stolen the blessing of his father which belonged to the first born (Esau) and resulted in Esau threatening to kill him.  For twenty years Jacob lived away from home and family.  It took a long time for reconciliation to come for those brothers, but it did.  Jacob described it as he spoke to his brother, "...for truly to see your face is like seeing the face of God--since you have received me with such favor."  (Genesis 33:10)  Reconciliation is like Jacob described it.  Always it is a moment filled with grace.

The Twelve

Maybe Abraham had only one son (two counting Ishmael), and Isaac had only two, but Jacob had twelve.  Of course, Jacob had two wives who gave him sons as did their two maids.  Four women and twelve sons.  A summation of all this is found in Genesis 35:23-26.  But, what is interesting about all this is not the number of sons or the number of different women who gave him sons, but the difference in the way God viewed Abraham having a son by Hagar, a slave woman, and Jacob having two sons by Bilhah, Rachel's maid, and two more  by Zilpah, Leah's maid.  All these sons are lumped together and known as fathers of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

 

I wonder why God pushed Ishmael outside the family and included the sons of Jacob who were born by maids.  Why, I wonder, did God not respond to what seems to be basically the same kind of situation in a more consistent manner?  Why honor these four sons of the maids of Jacob and make the son born of Hagar an outcast?  It seems that Ishmael got a bump rap from God. 

 

One of the things we want from God is consistency.  We want Him to do for one like he does for the other.  Of course, it does not work out that way.  He is consistent in being one who gives love and mercy, grace and goodness to all.  Expressions of His nature do not change from one person to another.  But, the reality is God is God and the way He leads and blesses different folks is up to Him and according to His individual purpose.  Our life with God is not like another person, but is one that reflects God's personal relationship with each one of us.   

Dreaming

The Bible is full of dreamers and dream stories.  To remember them is to remember Joseph in Egypt, Daniel, Joseph of Nazareth, and, of course, Jacob.  After Jacob tricked his father into giving him the blessing which belonged to the first born son, he took  his mother's advice and fled in fear of the wrath of his brother, Esau.  On the way to where he was going, he had the ladder dream that was filled with angels. In that dream he experienced the Lord standing beside him saying, "...Know that I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land..."(Genesis 28:15)  When Jacob awoke from the dream, he took the rock he had used for a pillow and created a shrine to the moment of God appearing to him in the dream.

 

All of us have had our share of dreams.  Perhaps, not all of us have had dreams like the one Jacob had at the place he called Bethel.  It may also be true that many of us do not really consider the possibility that God might choose to use our dream life to speak to us, lead us, or help us make a decision.  But, as we stop to think about it, we realize that when we sleep and when we dream, our conscious mind which we use to direct our life is replaced by the sub-conscious part of us which dares in the absence of the conscious to work overtly in our behalf.  If God can use conscious thoughts during the day to guide, why is it difficult for us to believe that He can do the same in the night when our sub-conscious sits on the throne?

 

Of course, there is some wisdom in moving slowly into embracing this dimension of our inner life.  It is often the case that dreams are not to be taken literally, but simply open up some sub-texts to us.  Our dreams may be giving us another voice to hear.  It may not be as obvious as we think it is.  Instead, we are likely to discover that we have to learn how to listen to the voice of our dreams.  If we are listening for the voice of God, we need to make sure it is His voice we are hearing and not our own.  It may take some practice to distinguish between the two.  

A Formula for Disaster

When we read that simple statement saying that Isaac loved Esau and Rebekah loved Jacob, we know trouble is brewing.  It has always seemed amazing the way the Scripture makes no attempts to paint over the flawed family life of the Genesis patriarchs.  I have often thought a good sub-title for Genesis would be "How not to rear children."  Abraham never would have sent Hagar and Ishmael away had it not been for Sarah's insistence.  He simply had no backbone for his own convictions when she spoke.  It always seemed that he was looking over his shoulder once Ishmael was gone.

 

And while Isaac and Rebekah may have loved each other deeply, they were miles apart on how to rear sons.  In the end we see where Jacob learned his deceptive ways.  Rebekah, too, was a master at deception and manipulation. Still, we see God moving His plan along through each generation.  He is never chained to a hurried time schedule as we are.  His movements toward what He seeks to accomplish may be slow, but they are always steady,

 

When we find ourselves in what we know is an imperfect set of circumstances, we might think that others whose lives look more orderly and together are being used by God to accomplish great things, but such is not necessarily the case.  God has proven again and again that He can use chaos in such a way as to bring order.  He can use our messes to do unimaginable things.  If it takes several generations to bring His plan to fruition, it does not diminish the reality of His work.  Like those imperfect Genesis parents of the twins, we can simply be grateful that God can use us and our family to move along His plan even though we may not live to see it. 

Not Our Way

Anyone ever tried to second guess God?  Or, have you ever tried to figure Him out?  Most likely all of us have at one time or another wondered why He did something the way He did it.  When I indulge in such musings, it usually means I think I can see a better way.  For example, if God wanted to make Jacob the recipient of His blessing instead of Esau, would it not have been an easier thing to have had him be the first twin born?  If such had been done, there would have been no need for Jacob to be involved in such deception and neither would his mother felt a need to push her favorite son into a position that did not rightfully belong to him.

 

What happened certainly makes for a better and more intriguing story, but surely God had more in mind than an entertaining and riveting story of a dysfunctional family.  Most of us can look back at the story of our life and see those kinds of moments when it could have been written a different way.  If we could choose to leave out some of the really hard and difficult moments of our life, we would likely quickly grab the opportunity.  But, such is apparently not the way of God.  He does not engineer our life so that it is empty of troubling moments, but He does always promise to get us through them.

 

As we read the story of Jacob, we see him coming to a place in his walk with God that we could not have imagined in the beginning.  His place of being the blessed one should have gone to Esau, but God had another way.  He had a something He wanted accomplished through Jacob and He found a way to do it despite what seemed to be impossible circumstances.  It is and will be no different with anyone of us.