A Sibling Reunion… A Time to Remember and Observe!
Deuteronomy 32:7 “Remember the days of old, Consider the years of all generations. Ask your father, and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you – and this one too – Leviticus 19:37 You shall thus observe all My statutes and all My ordinances and do them; I am the Lord.”
Days of Old… FOR SURE! My father is no longer with us but my ELDERS sure are! And they love to TELL me… mostly what they tell me their memories of the days when I “was” the spoiled baby.
And I was… (maybe still am)
But I don’t remember those days! And it is possible that my siblings don’t remember them correctly, age (with a touch of dementia) colors and clouds and rewrites our memory. Fortunately we don’t remember for the purpose of observing… keeping – celebrating – preserving – performing – protecting (just some of the descriptive definitions “Strong’s Concordance” records for this word observe). We remember for the purpose of putting everyone in their place… for positive and negative purposes! It would be disastrous if our family remembering was the lasting judgement over any of our lives or if we took those judgements seriously and set about becoming everything these people say about us.
For the most part, in my family, we tell the family stories with the motives of a comedian. Whether or not there is an underlying motive or a tone of judgement, we take it all in and spit out those parts that feel and taste like sand. In all probability there will be no pearls produced during this sibling reunion… but … then again… there would be no pearls produced in clams if everything COULD BE or WOULD BE digested and used for the body’s good.
Pearls are produced because the clams are protecting themselves (something humans do) from the hurt and damage of a foreign object. They surround it with a substance that builds and forms (walls?) a smooth surface. This process eventually creates something that we consider beautiful and useful to adorn ourselves. To us, jewels. To the clam… it’s just an aggravation!
Remember the days of old… like Joseph…
As the baby of the family, I have a special connection with Joseph and his siblings. From Genesis 30:22 we see his very special conception and birth (“God has taken away my reproach”), his childhood (Genesis 37:3 now Jacob Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age;), his relationship with his siblings (Genesis 37:4 so they hated him), his ability to aggravate (Genesis 37:5 Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more.), and the healthy sibling relationships he failed to have (Genesis 37:20 They said to one another… come and let us kill him).
Joseph was “protected” by his older brother, Reuben, who agreed to throw him into a pit in the wilderness – not out of love – but out of a sense of concern for his father. Reuben’s plan was to rescue him when tempers calmed down. Before he could do it, Judah saw a way to at least make a profit from the kid instead of killing him… “Come let us sell him – former he is our brother, our own flesh”… When Reuben returned to rescue his brother he was gone. So much for caring about his father’s love of his younger son, it was time to create an alternative memory! Genesis 37:31-33 So they took Joseph’s tunic (a gift from his father), dipped it in the blood of a slaughtered goat, and presented it to their father for his identification. “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him; Joseph was surely torn to pieces!”
Now this is a story worthy of a sibling reunion!
I wonder if my siblings ever considered killing me… or selling me. I didn’t ask at our reunion this last week. Maybe because there is a small (very small) part of me that really does remember the times I was a grain of sand in their craw growing up. I probably would have just laughed at their reasoning and told them to be glad for my pearl making abilities.
But really… aren’t all families like Jacob’s Israel’s?
God wants us to remember… But God wants us to remember the TRUTH…
Unlike our purpose which is usually to promote ourselves and demote others, God’s desire is for us to keep – celebrate – preserve – perform – protect the truth… His truth.
We should… we could… we would… but… WHAT IF?????
(Genesis 50:15-16) What if Joseph bears a grudge against us (human nature) and pays us back (what they deserved) for all the wrong which we did (and caused) to him! So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, Dad told us to tell you to forgive us!
Observe and Remember!
The truth is we would be nothing and no where without God…
Genesis 50:19-20 But Joseph said to them, Do not be afraid, for I am in God’s place? As for you, you meant evil against me, (or at least not good) but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive (Joseph was given the skill, know how, and resources to stave off starvation in the midst of a great famine countrywide).
But God…
Every creature, every person, every family, every sibling owes it’s/our existence – its/our history – its/our ultimate place in creation to God.
Whether or not we believe in Him…
Whether or not we obey Him…
Whether or not we ask Him…
Exodus 2:24-25 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.
Remember Him…
Whom you were told about… whom you believe in… whom you wished for… Whom you try to imagine…
Remember Him… He IS the Great I AM… “I AM WHO I AM” Exodus 3:14
Remember all that has come before you, all that has come with you, and all that will come after you!
You could not have made even one second of your life happen, much less all the events you have taken part in.
Jeremiah 29:11-13 “For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all your heart”
We should remember… the plans that God has for us
Then, we should observe the path God sets before us… “you will seek Me and find Me when you search for me with all your heart”
My sibling reunion was absolutely fabulous! I got to spend time with fantastic people with whom I share DNA (that is if none of the rumors of adoption are true) and a history. I got to BE WITH FAMILY!
Family that ONLY GOD could (and would have!) have imagined and created!
For this reason… I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant to every one of us, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith; and that each of us, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that each of us may be filled up to all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)
I look forward to THIS sibling reunion… our forever reunion… an appointed time in the presence of God to OBSERVE and REMEMBER!
**All Scripture quoted comes from the “Bible Gateway” app and is the NASB version of the Bible