2009 - Day 29 - Final Exam, Part One

January 29, 2009 … Swindoll’s Topic for Today: Final Exam, Part One

Passage of the Day: Genesis 44: 1 – 16 … Utilize this link to read, study, and mediate on this passage.

My Journal for Today: This is interesting stuff for any believer. It sure is for me. Here we have Joseph setting up a test, a trial for his brothers, to see if they had Godly values in their heart. And as the trial unfolds, we see Joseph planting a silver chalice in the bag of young Benjamin, which was discovered by the Prime Minister’s steward when he came to do a check of their belongings as they were traveling back to Canaan once again with grain.

And upon the return to the household of the Master (i.e., Joseph), Judah steps forward to take the lead for the brothers, … Judah, who’s hatred had almost caused Joseph’s life when the brothers finally decided to sell him into Egypt rather than kill Joseph. And we read Judah’s remarkable confession, which was exactly what Joseph wanted to hear. I’m sure Judah’s words had to have been an answer to Joseph’s unvoiced prayers, … that the hearts of these men who had hated him over 20 years earlier would be softened, … that they would come to repent of their evil deeds, … and that they would see God at work in all of where the Lord had taken them, including this, most recent, episode.

And really, as Swindoll points out in his devotional entry, when you consider all the water under the bridge in the lives of the brothers, especially Judah, what took place in today’s passage is really God’s answers to Joseph’s prayers. Joseph didn’t want to reveal himself until he could see that the brothers had remorse, not only for the incident with the cup, but also for their past rejection of Joseph.

And in verse 16 of today’s passage, Joseph hears what he wanted to hear, … that Judah recognized that God had not let their past sins go unchallenged, … that Judah’s remorse had transformed him enough to take responsibility for the cup which implicated Benjamin, … and that here were his brothers standing before him, ready to be his brothers again.

Somehow, I know that others who read this, like myself, have unresolved anguish or hurts from the past to which we have taken to God but yet remain unresolved. I still pray for a sister who is lost, one who totally rejects God in her life; but like Joseph, I have seen God intervene in the lives of family to bring them to Himself. My mother, whom I feared was lost, came to confess Christ as her Savior just hours before she passed away, literally on her death-bed. My wife’s mother, who was deeply into dementia in her last years, we’re convinced, had a Spirit-led epiphany, discovering God just about a year before she died. So, meditating on this scenario unfolding in the life of Joseph and knowing and believing God’s word in 2nd Peter 3: 9 [linked for you here] , that He desires that my sister come to Him just as Elly patiently waited and saw our mothers saved by God’s grace, I am lifted up with hope.

So, if you’re like Joseph, doing all you can, but leaving unresolved family issues on God’s throne of grace, hopefully you can find a refuge of hope in today’s passage and my words of testimony and witness. God desires that any/all come to Him; but it still must be those who can repent and receive His saving grace. And we read that truth in Judah’s answer to Joseph’s trial.

Keep praying for lost or wayward family; God not only relishes in your trust and patience. He also patiently waits for His chosen family, like Judah, to seek His mercy.

My Prayer Today: Like Joseph, Lord, I wait on You to intervene in the life of my family to bring them to repentance and salvation. Amen