Genesis 43:1-34
Dealing with Crisis

“… so that we … may live and not die.”(v8) Pastor Dave noted that God sometimes uses extreme circumstances, even a life-and-death crisis, to move people in His direction. I thought about how often we try to protect someone we love – perhaps a wayward adult child – from such a crisis. If you find yourself simultaneously wanting a loved one to come to the Lord but also protecting him or her from crisis, ask God to strengthen you to pray, “Your will be done, Lord. Do your work in ----’s life, even if it means leading him or her into a life-and-death crisis.”

“He wants to attack us … and seize us as slaves and take our donkeys.” (v18) Like the brothers, we often rush to false assumptions about another person’s plans and motives when we are overcome with worry or fear. We may also make false assumptions about what God is doing, thinking things like, “God is punishing me.” Whether you are facing a crisis right now or not, ask the Lord to help you recognize when you are making false assumptions. Ask Him to enable you be a true friend to someone else by helping them separate false assumptions from truth.

“If it must be, then do this: [Take] some of the best products of the land … to the man as a gift.” (v11) Not for the first time, Jacob tries to solve a crisis by his own wisdom and efforts. Pray for yourself (and for all of us): Lord, train me so that my first reaction to crisis – my default reaction – is to seek Your direction, to ask You what I should do. Discipline me to listen to You and obey, doing what You ask and nothing else.

Pastor Dave noted that we get to see the brothers’ crisis from the narrator’s elevated point of view, and we can read ahead to Chapter 45 to find out how the crisis is resolved. In our own crises, though, we’re in the same boat as the brothers, clueless about how the Lord is working in the crisis and how it will end. Pastor Dave taught that an important lesson to be learned from this passage in encapsulated in Psalm 46:10-11. Whether you are in a crisis right now or between crises, take time to meditate on and pray through these verses. Lord, show me what “being still” looks like and feels like. Teach me how to focus on You, not on myself or the crisis I’m in; how to hear Your voice, not my own voice debating what to do next.

Calvary Family

The Pszczyna church’s Bible Week begins on Friday. Be faithful in praying for the church and for the people they seek to reach through all kinds of meetings and activities. You can read more about it in Pastor Tomasz’s latest prayer letter.

Lift up our Memorial Day picnic, asking the Lord to bless us with koinonia, true Christian fellowship. Ask Him to arrange for you the chance to meet someone in the body you don’t know.

In Christ,
Carol Gilbert
Calvary Community Church of Brea

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