| Good morning everyone, Our theme for this month: “Personal Responsibility” Our Bible verse for today: “When Jacob saw that there were food rations to be had in Egypt, he said to his sons, ‘Why do you keep looking at one another?’” Genesis 42:1 (Jewish Publication Society Translation) Our thought for today: “Let’s stop sitting around looking at each other” Recently I was reading Dr. Dennis Prager’s commentary on the story of Joseph from the book of Genesis. It was contained in Prager’s work, “The Rational Bible”. If you remember the context of that part of the story, we read in Genesis chapter forty-two that the people were suffering from a prolonged famine. There was little food and everyone was starving. But thanks to the vision God had given to Joseph regarding the approaching famine and the steps Joseph had taken to prepare for it, there was abundant food in Egypt – even enough to sell to people from other lands. Jacob and his family were in Palestine starving. So, in Genesis 42:1 Jacob asked his sons why they were just sitting around looking at each other while they all starve, instead of traveling to Egypt to get some food. They had a great need and there was something that could be done about it, but none of them were taking the needed action. In his commentary Dr. Prager observed, “He (Jacob) asked the question we should all ask when there is an ongoing and unaddressed problem: ‘Why am I – why are we – not doing something to solve it?’ Too often, we just keep looking at one another waiting (hoping) for something to change.” This brings us back to the point we were considering yesterday about being men and women of wholehearted action. When problems exist and something needs to be done, we need to stop sitting around waiting for the issue to be magically fixed by God, or for someone else to do something about it. If you see something do something. If something needs to be dealt with, then deal with it. This pertains to our individual lives, our family life, our church life, and life in society. How many of us are living with bad health due to poor lifestyle choices – and we want to be healthier, but we’re not doing the things we need to do in order to be healthier? Let’s just do it. How many of us in our family life see something that needs to be addressed (the trash needs to be taken out) but we leave it for someone else to do? Just take care of it. How about in our church life? How often do we see things at church that really do need some attention but we ignore it thinking someone else will handle it? The same is true in society. If there are issues in the community or the nation that bother you and need to be addressed, then get involved and do something about it. Let’s stop sitting around looking at situations and at each other waiting for things to get better all by themselves. Instead, let’s go to Egypt and get the food (or lose the weight, or take the trash out, or, well, you get the idea). We have a responsibility to do something about it rather than just sitting around waiting for it to fix itself. God bless, Pastor Jim |
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