prosperity and the loathsome

Pleiades photo from http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/

In Genesis 46 and 47 we get a picture of a great reuniting
as well as a difference in beliefs. The people of God were rather loathsome in the eyes of the prosperous Egyptians. They didn't understand their ways of worship, because they stayed far from God and His people, and relied on the prosperity of their own hands as well as the counsel of their own minds. Yet, here in these chapters we see the workings of grace and purpose. The difficulties endured were part and parcel of the steady unfolding of God's plan for His people. He so desired that they cry out to Him in their time of need.

He wants our attention and will do all it takes to get it.
The splendid understanding comes
when we acknowledge Him as LORD over and over again
in our daily decisions. Our hearts cannot hold all of His goodness,
it will be just the right size for the moment though.
We will be unable to see its ending or beginning,
but the joy will fill us, and we won't care if we can define it.

The people of God are different from the people of this world.
The focus is different.
We are unable to claim our own lives, our sojourning brings us many places. We move, we live, we have our being in a spiritual realm connected to the invisible God who tells us He loves us and gave us His son. Our minds cannot comprehend that story,
but we can relate to it.
We know suffering here.
Jesus suffered too.
Even now, God works to reunite us to Him.


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"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us." Romans 8:18

"...that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.." Philippians 3:10

"...choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin..." Hebrews 11:25