The Everyday Prayer

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 37:2-14, 18-28 (day six)
“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.”  (v 4)  He was his father’s favorite and it drove his brothers crazy (angry)!  Not a recommended pattern for positive family life.  Even so, the Joseph story reminds me of Jesus.  The Bible says that the Lord was crucified because the Jewish leaders were envious.  (Mark 15:10)  Are we ever the same?  When God chooses someone for a special task and gives them special gifts for the accomplishment of same, do we ever second-guess?  Wonder why it wasn’t us?  Unwise.  The Bible says that God works all things after the counsel of His own will.  He is immensely wise and magnificently good.  Better for us to trust the “gifts and calling” that He puts on every life without envy or anger.  No favorites here, just the unrepentant wisdom of God.

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 37:2-14, 18-28, Genesis 39:1-12 (day four)
Isaiah 55:11 says, “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” God had a plan for Joseph.  He shared it with Joseph when he was just a young man…he would be in a position of authority.  There was no way for Joseph to understand all that would occur in order for God’s plan to come about in his life.  Even the jealousy of his brothers and their desire to kill him could not thwart God’s plan.  If fact, it was used to accomplish His plan.  Potipher’s  wife could not sidetrack God’s plan either.  Joseph stayed true to the God who loved him and kept himself pure for the work God had planned in his life.  For us to remain usable to God, we, like Joseph, must consecrate our lives for His service.  What God plans, He accomplishes!

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 37-39 (day three)
“When he told [the dream] to his brothers, they hated him all the more.”  It’s easy to expect too much of Joseph.  He is, after all, in the Bible.  But here, he is a seventeen-year-old kid.  To be foolish and seventeen is not the same as to be foolish and thirty.  Life’s hostilities can set the stage for the transformation of the heart.  It doesn’t always happen that way, but in Joseph’s story, we see that not all is lost when dreams fade.  If God shows a little bit of what the future could hold, he also stands ready to help the heart do the hard work of growing to make that dream a reality.  As Joseph discovered, paying attention to the life that is will help get a long-neglected dream ready for the real world.

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 37:2-14, 18-28, Genesis 39:1-12 (day two)
“Then they took him and threw him into the pit” (Genesis 37:24). The pit. The darkness was blinding. The jagged walls tore at his flesh. The dust choked his breathing and caked inside his mouth. The isolation gave birth to a loneliness he had never known. The futility of escape let in the first creeping shadow of hopelessness. Escaping the pit and going home was his first priority. But God had another first priority. The pit was the safe haven preserving his life from the murderous intentions of his brothers. The pit was the purifying fire out of which would emerge the pure gold of moral integrity. The pit was the pathway to humility and clarity of insight that would lead a nation. The pit was the servant of God who would rescue His people from starvation and keep the promise to Abraham. Accomplishing salvation for the world was God’s first priority, and He would do it through the pit. God’s priority hasn’t changed, so what is He accomplishing in your pit?

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 37:2-14, 18-28, Genesis 39:1-12 (day one)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” (Declaration of Independence)  I don’t want to be politically incorrect but Thomas Jefferson was wrong.  We are NOT equal in gifts and opportunities.  In worth and dignity, yes, but not in privilege and calling.   The Scriptures declare a different “self-evident” truth–that God is sovereign and rules over people who have vastly different assignments.  Some have much, others less.  Some are destined for leadership (cf Joseph’s dream) and others for lives more hidden.  Some will have their Father’s favor.  Others will experience their brother’s hatred. (Some will know both).  From a Christian perspective, it is a waste of breath to protest, “Life is not fair”.  We agree.  This week as we study the life of Joseph we will mark his progress toward a different discovery.  Life is not fair, but God is good!  At the point of His grace we ARE all equal.

Re: Verse reading–Judges 16:4-30 (day seven)
“The Lords of the Philistines came to her and said, ‘Coax him, and find out what makes his strength so great.’ ” (v 5)  I do not blame the Philistines for wanting to know.  I’m not surprised they were clueless about spiritual power.  I do blame Samson for not remembering.  In Philippians 4:13, Paul says that he can do all things “through HIM who gives me STRENGTH”.  The word used is a form of our word dynamite.  And how do ordinary people find great power for living?  Moses knew.  “If YOUR PRESENCE does not go with us, do not send us up from here.  How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless YOU GO WITH US? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”  (Exodus 33:15-16)  Question–what makes his (our) strength so great?  Answer–The presence of God in our lives!

Re: Verse reading–Judges 16 (day six)
“So those he (Samson) killed at his death were more than he killed during his life.” (v 30)  Think about it.  It is possible that the last chapter of life can be the greatest chapter of all.  Even for those who have drifted away from God, wasting years in foolish friendship with the world.  It is possible to return to God and to great spiritual usefulness.  Think Samson.  Publically shamed and physically maimed, it would have been easy for him to collapse into depression and defeat.  He didn’t.  Somehow in the darkness, he “saw” that God’s calling and gifts are irrevocable (Romans 11:29).  So, he believed/hoped/prayed that God would forgive and restore him to useful service.  May the Lord give us equal insight.  Prodigal is not the most important word.  Son is.  None of us have gone so far that the Lord will not hear our prayer of repentance.  It is still possible to end well.

Re: Verse reading–Judges 16:4-30 (day four)
From his birth, Samson had been different.  He was set aside as a Nazarite for the work of the Lord.  A razor had never touched his head and his physical strength was unequaled.  God, in His sovereignty, had plans for Samson.  Unfortunately, Samson did not consecrate his life to God.  He accepted the gift of physical strength, but his spiritual strength was lacking.  Even before Samson had his eyes gouged out in V. 21, he was blinded.  Blinded by his own selfish pride.  He had been used of God to judge Judah for 20 years, but Samson had moved so far from God that when God departed from him (V. 20), he didn’t even know it.  But God honors faith!  Samson responds to his defeat by the Philistines by asking God for one last burst of strength.  His response of faith qualified him for the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11.  God wants His people to depend wholly upon Him in faith!

Re: Verse reading–Judges 16:4-30 (day three)
“She prodded him day after day until he was sick to death of it.”  At some point, Samson began to cherish his own desire above all else.  He knew what was right.  He understood the parameters of human interaction.  He comprehended that God had called him to champion Israel.  But none of that shaped his character.  Something else received his allegiance: desire.  Samson’s life gives us a picture of a life shaped by desire: He wanted food, and he flouted ritual dietary law to obtain it; he wanted sex, and no parental authority or moral code stood in his way; he was “sick to death” of conflict, and no trust proved too sacred to violate.  Woody Allen once observed: “The heart wants what it wants.”  When that becomes the extent of the heart’s moral reasoning, it never, ever, ever finds what it wants.