A Time of Tension: Fear & Perplexity

1/12/2008 12:11 PM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  A Time of Tension:  Fear and perplexity

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 42:25-35

            Message of the verses:  “25  Then Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain and to restore every man’s money in his sack, and to give them provisions for the journey. And thus it was done for them.  26  So they loaded their donkeys with their grain and departed from there.  27  As one of them opened his sack to give his donkey fodder at the lodging place, he saw his money; and behold, it was in the mouth of his sack.  28  Then he said to his brothers, "My money has been returned, and behold, it is even in my sack." And their hearts sank, and they turned trembling to one another, saying, "What is this that God has done to us?"

29 ¶  “When they came to their father Jacob in the land of Canaan, they told him all that had happened to them, saying, 30  "The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly with us, and took us for spies of the country.  31  "But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we are not spies.  32  ‘We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no longer alive, and the youngest is with our father today in the land of Canaan.’  33  "The man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘By this I will know that you are honest men: leave one of your brothers with me and take grain for the famine of your households, and go.  34  ‘But bring your youngest brother to me that I may know that you are not spies, but honest men. I will give your brother to you, and you may trade in the land.’"  35  Now it came about as they were emptying their sacks, that behold, every man’s bundle of money was in his sack; and when they and their father saw their bundles of money, they were dismayed.”

I seen in this section that Joseph gave orders to put the money that the brothers brought to buy gain back into the grain sacks before they had left for home.  Next one of the brothers opens his sack of grain to feed the donkeys and finds the money.  Now this is where the story gets quit confusion, for why did not the rest of the brothers open their sacks to see if their money was there?  According to Genesis 43:21 all the men opened their sacks at this time, “and it came about when we came to the lodging place, that we opened our sacks, and behold, each man’s money was in the mouth of his sack, our money in full. So we have brought it back in our hand.”  The puzzling part of this is that all of them acted surprised about this when the opened their sacks in front of Jacob.  I am not sure what the answer is to this or if it is so important to even know, but this is surely a mystery. 

Spiritual meaning for my life today:  In Dr. Wiersbe’s book he wrote that this would have been a good time for this family to ask the Lord to search their hearts to find out the sin that was still their, but they did not, however God did work out his plan in spite of this not happening,

 As I go through this time of fasting I find that it is not as special as the first time I did this in 1999, and one of the reasons is that at that time my primary goal was for spiritual reasons as I wanted the Lord to give direction to my life after my recent retirement.  This fast seems to be a fast to loose the unwanted pounds as a first priority and the spiritual reasons as a second, which is NOT RIGHT.  I truly believe that the Lord wants me to be healed from the difficulties that I am going through, and the things that is foremost on  my mind as far as God speaking to me concerning this fast is my commitment to being a follower of Jesus Christ, for this should be first and foremost on my mind.  I am also trying to find out some information on confession as I think that my confessions have been shallow and do not seem to be done in a right manor.  I have asked the Lord to search my heart, but thus far I still feel that this fast has not done me any spiritual good at this point.  I have confessed to the Lord that my priorities for this fast have not been correct, and pray that they will get turned around.  I need help.

My Steps of Faith for today:  Trust the Lord to give me the answers that I seek and resolve this problem.