Jacob
said to Joseph, "God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan
and blessed me. He said to me, 'I will make you fruitful, and I will multiply
your descendants. I will make you a multitude of nations. And I will
give this land of Canaan to your descendants after you as an everlasting
possession.' Now I am claiming as my own sons these two boys of yours, Ephraim
and Manasseh, who were born here in the land of Egypt before I arrived. They
will be my sons, just as Reuben and Simeon are." Genesis 48:3-5.
Blessings are
passed on. When you feel blessed, don’t you want to bless others, too? There is
something about being loved and cared for that just makes me want to reach out
to others. Likewise when I feel rejected or unappreciated, I just want to
withdraw and keep to myself—I don’t want to be around anyone. I tend to be a bit
of an introvert anyway, so it’s easy for me to retreat into a solitude of my
own.
Jacob wasn’t
concerned with solitude—he wanted to meet his grandsons and bless them—to make
them recognized as his own sons. I think this was to make up for all that he
had lost when he thought Joseph had been killed when he was 17 years old.
Joseph was actually sold into slavery by his brothers—see Genesis 37. It was
all part of God’s plan to allow the Israelites to go to Egypt during the famine
and then become a great nation there, enslaved. The plan was for the great
exodus to occur with Moses leading them back to the Promised Land. That was the
land that God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob…and now to all of Jacob’s
sons, including his two grandsons. What a promise! Land. A place to belong…forever.
Jacob was passing on the blessing that God had given to him. The Promised Land.
What has God
promised to you? Are you passing that on to those around you?
Prayer – Lord God, may we distinctly see
the blessings that You are giving us. Help us not to just have hindsight…looking
back and saying “Oh, yes. Now I see that God blessed me last year…or ten years
ago.” Let us see You in action in our lives every day, moment by moment. Our
hope is not just in going to Heaven to be with You someday…but in the reality
that You are with us ALWAYS—even now today.
Bible
Reading: January 28 – Genesis 46-47
©
2017 by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved. All
scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless otherwise notedBiblical search from Blue Letter Bible
- http://v3.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm. www.blueletterbible.org/dailyreading
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