Pastor Powell's Column

March 2010

Perception and Reality

“Everything is against me!”

These are the words of Jacob in Genesis 42:36 (NIV). He was overwhelmed with grief and desperation. The choices he faced would seem akin to the terrible decision confronting a Jewish mother captured by the Nazis in the famous book Sophie’s Choice. Heartbreak threatened to kill Jacob.

Jacob can be forgiven for thinking everything was against him. Look at his world from his perspective. His beloved son Joseph is dead, torn by wild animals. His darling Rachel has died in childbirth years earlier, and his youngest son Benjamin is all he has left of that deepest love. His remaining children in this blended family have too often disappointed their dad by their conduct and relationships. Now someone is trying to frame them as thieves, in the bags-of-silver affair. They are at the mercy of a man in Egypt who holds Simeon hostage. The only way he will free Simeon is if young Benjamin is torn from his father’s arms and brought to Egypt. What reason do they have to trust the word of this Egyptian ruler? Especially since he is the one who will think that Jacob’s sons have stolen his silver!

But Jacob is absolutely clear on one thing: he will not send Benjamin. He will not risk the life of his only link to Rachel and Joseph. But now, in chapter 42, the old patriarch’s resolve is broken. The icy fingers of famine are once again on the throats of his entire family. They will all starve unless Jacob takes the unbearable risk and accedes to the demands of the Egyptian tyrant. Jacob has no choice.

“Everything is against me!” wails Jacob.

Or so it seems.

In actual fact, at that point everything is FOR Jacob!

Not that Jacob could have understood that. There is a difference between perception and reality. In Jacob’s case the difference is not one of inches but of light years, so vast the gulf between the reality of his situation and his perception of it.

If someone had quoted to Jacob the New Testament promise “all things work together for good to those who love God, to them that are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:27-29), it could seem only like a bitter joke.

Yet that was – and still is – God’s truth.

Jacob was in a covenant relationship with Almighty God. To Jacob and his forebears, the Lord had promised on oath to bless them and to make them a blessing to all nations.

If you had tried to prove God’s promise to Jacob by explaining what was really going on, the story would be inconceivable. The words would sound like a wild fairy tale. Yet he would soon learn of it through direct experience. Very soon royal carts and chariots would appear at his tent with rich provisions and gifts. Gradually the aged Jacob would come to believe his sons’ story: “Joseph is not dead. He is now prime minister of Egypt. He has come to manage a supply of food that will feed us, feed Egypt, and feed much of the world.” God had worked out a number of extraordinary circumstances to place Joseph in this position in order to save Jacob’s family and many other lives.

Jacob’s head is spinning and his heart is singing as he boards the carts to travel to Egypt. There he receives royal treatment from Pharaoh himself, and his family is given the very best of the land to settle in. Best of all, Jacob is able to hug to his heart his beloved Joseph, long presumed dead.

Yet there’s so much more to the story. The famine and all these circumstances were a part of God’s plan to get Jacob’s family into the environment where they would be built into a great nation, as God had promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Across the centuries God would shape that nation through miracles and trials, failures and restorations, until one day He would bring forth from Israel the Messiah, Jesus, Savior of the world.

God’s gracious plan stretched well beyond what Jacob was able to witness in his own lifetime. But even in his own lifetime, God used Jacob, a humble shepherd in Palestine, to bless Pharaoh, ruler of the mightiest empire on earth (Genesis 47:10).

God’s plan and purpose for blessing is still at work. Are you a believer, a follower in covenant relation with the Lord? Then even when everything seems to be against you, the reality is that everything is for you. Faith is choosing to live in that reality, rather than living in your perception of reality.