Exploring God's Truth: Genesis 45:25-28

As we journey closer to God, along the way we find it easier to believe the truth God knows about us.  Drawing closer to God implies we see the amazing things He has done for us and for other people.  We see His glory, and it becomes easier to believe Him instead of the world.

The sons return and share the news that Joseph is alive.  They tell Jacob that Joseph is the vizier in Egypt and the Pharoah wants them to come to Egypt to provide for them during the famine.  They have excellent news to report.

The Bible doesn’t explicitly say the brothers confessed their sin to Jacob, and perhaps they didn’t.  The last thing they told Jacob was they found Joseph’s robe and it had blood on it.  They technically could have let Jacob continue in his belief in that story.

I’d like to believe Jacob’s sons come clean anyways.  Joseph is alive and second leader of the land to which they are going, he may tell his father his version of what happened.  In that case, it is better for Jacob to hear it from Judah’s mouth than from Joseph’s mouth.  More importantly, though, I hope the sons of Jacob learn about repentance and forgiveness and apply those lessons to their relationship with Jacob.  Through forgiveness, Joseph and his brothers were reunited successfully without awkward reservation between them.  Jacob has hinted that he is suspicious of his sons and the only true way past that grievance is through repentance and forgiveness.  In the end, though, the Bible does not tell us about the conversation the sons have with their father.

At first, Jacob has trouble believing the reality of the story.  It’s been several decades since he had to mourn his son’s presumed death, and he’d gotten used to the idea that Joseph was dead.  Even though the truth is better than the fiction he believed, the reality is he’d believed the fiction for a long time.  Of course, Jacob wanted to believe the truth!  The problem was that the truth didn’t sound like truth at first.  It was too good to believe.

That’s also true between us and God.  God comes to us and tells us He loves us and cherishes us.  He values us for who we are.  We hear that good news, but we are accustomed to believing our own fiction about ourselves. We focus on the blemishes and the imperfections and struggle to believe the truth God knows and shares with us.

Jacob goes to see Joseph.  Fortunately, the wagons and the wealth the brothers bring back are enough to convince Jacob to investigate the truth for himself.  Again, this is like us and God.   While we may struggle to believe the truth God knows, there are enough signs to convince us to explore God’s truth more deeply.  As we journey closer to God, along the way we find it easier to believe the truth God knows about us.