Pattern Breaker

Genesis 48

Like love, trust is a decision, a decision we have to renew regularly under constantly changing circumstances. Each new generation must decide to trust in the promise. In our era, the general promise is that Jesus will be with us as we seek to fulfill the mission he called his own (to seek the lost) and which he passes on to us. One generation’s means of doing that may, or may not, draw on the means that have gone before; it all depends on the time. That’s all that contemporary really means: of the time you’re in. I avoid the word because it has come to have connotations of specific style, especially as it applies to worship.

But anyway, back to trust as a decision. Both the inclusion of Joseph’s sons as sons of Jacob for inclusion in the promise, and the seemingly arbitrary reversal of blessing on them by Jacob are acts of randomly applied grace. The switching of blessing is of course reminiscent of the story in which Jacob is the recipient of the ‘wrong’ choice, but this is more than an echo, in what way we can’t really say. The text itself suggests no reason for the switch and we are probably best to keep our speculative paws off. The fact we don’t know the reason may be part of the meaning. The one thing we might surmise is simply that it is a divinely directed choice.

Just when a new pattern of life would seem to be in formation, God shows that he is ready to shake things up again. Like love, trust is a decision, a decision we have to renew regularly under constantly changing circumstances.

Prayer:
Lord, thank you that you give me the means to understand what I need to understand, and confuse me in the matters that are best left to trust. Thank you for the side of this we might more readily welcome: that you want to break patterns of living that waste and destroy. Through Christ. Amen.