Genesis 44:27 “Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons.
I have to keep reminding myself that this Judah–the Judah who went along with his brothers’ ideas, who suggested instead of leaving his brother to rot in a well they sell him to the Egyptians, who lied to his father about the fate of his father’s favored son, regardless of the toll it took on the father–this Judah is the ancestor of Jesus.
Genesis 44:28 One of them went away from me, and I said, “He has surely been torn to pieces.” And I have not seen him since.
I’m reminded yet again that if God can take someone with a heart and a history like that and change him, He can do that for and with anyone. We are already seeing the evidence of Judah’s change: he put himself on the line as surety for Benjamin’s safety, he’s imploring Joseph to think of his father’s health (meaning that he’s thinking of it, too), he’s being honest and vulnerable.
Genesis 44:29 If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery.’
Precious Savior, I have so much on my mind at present. Maybe Genesis is about the fact that You can use imperfect people in Your kingdom work. Maybe it’s about the power of second chances. Maybe it’s about the fact that we are all capable of change, of becoming who God created us to be. Help me to love others as You love. Amen.
Genesis 44:30-31 “So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life, sees that the boy isn’t there, he will die. Your servants will bring the gray head of our father down to the grave in sorrow.
Have a blessed day.