Day 24: A Prodigal Response to Undeserved Hurt and Hardship

Today we read Genesis 43-44, Job 35-36, and Proverbs 4:10-19. In this story, Judah confronts head on the terrible truth that started it all, his father loved Rachel more than he loved his mother and he loved her children more than he loved him. His father’s soul seemed bound to Benjamin’s and Judah accepted it. He was not battling against that anymore out of hurt and jealousy. Judah offered himself in the place of Benjamin as a slave, asking Joseph (who he did not recognize as the other favored son) to accept him, Judah, and let Benjamin go home. Even though Judah was hurt and facing a hard situation, he chose prodigal (reckless and unwarranted) love for his father and what his father wanted over everything else. This relates to the Job story where Elihu is warning us that if we allow our anger, grief, and hurt in response to suffering to move our soft hearts to harden in the direction of replacing the throne of God with ourselves, judging God as unjust and claiming ourselves sinless then we are in jeopardy of exiling our own hearts from His. Scripture makes it clear that God is not telling Job to stop asking questions, to stop wrestling, to stop crying out to God but to caution him against using the very permissive will God gave him to remove God from the throne of justice and goodness, a place only God is capable of leading from - there is a larger story at hand and it’s still unfolding today.

Resources:

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings (2021) Character Study - Joseph Part 2. BEMA Discipleship Project https://www.bemadiscipleship.com/215 

Genesis: A Parsha Companion by Rabbi David Fohrman

Credits:

Podcast music by Stockaudios from Pixabay. Speaker, Dr. Rachel Bodell. Podcast Sound Engineer, Alan Darling. Podcast Artwork, Will Gerard.