God’s discipline

This is truly a fascinating chapter when you think about it.

For in it, you see Joseph being confronted with his past hurts.

He sees his “honest” brothers (verse 11) for the first time in 20 years. (“Honest? Did you tell Father the truth about me?”)

He is confronted with how they sold him into slavery. “One of our brothers is no longer living.” (Genesis 42:13)

Then you have his brothers. God confronts them with the guilt that they have tried to bury for years. “Obviously, we are being punished for what we did to our brother.” (21)

And finally Jacob. Ever since Joseph disappeared, his life has basically stopped because of his grief. And he is probably wondering where God is in all his pain.

“Joseph is gone, and Simeon is gone. Now you want to take Benjamin. Everything happens to me!” (36)

Often times we confront pain in our lives.

Sometimes it’s things people have done to us.

Sometimes it’s the consequences of our own guilt.

And so we wonder, “Does God really hate me that much?”

And yet, God does not confront us with our pain to make us suffer. He does it to bring about our healing and salvation.

For Joseph, he finds out for the first time that Reuben was not involved in selling him. That he in fact had defended Joseph.

More, Joseph finds out his brothers were not as callous as he had thought. That all these years they had been wracked with guilt for what they had done to him. (21-22)

All that, I think, helped him to forgive.

For his brothers, they thought they were seeing God’s judgment. (21, 28)

In reality, they were seeing his salvation.

And for Jacob, though God had been silent during those 20 years of pain without Joseph, he would soon find out that God had been working for his good all along.

So let us remember the words of exhortation from the author of Hebrews:

“…we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them.

Shouldn’t we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live?

For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness.

No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore, strengthen your tired hands and weakened knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed instead.” (Hebrews 12:9-13)