Reading about Joseph today really is convicting. It's been a tough 24 hours and I am wrestling with the Lord on something quite heavy.
I couldn't sleep all night and woke up to this scripture today. I am taking it in as a direct word from the Lord and asking Him to show me
how to forgive so freely and without looking back. Guess those are the same thing. This life is not an easy one many times. Especially when it
comes to relationships. Joseph struggled with the fact that he was sold by his own brothers. How horrific that would be for a youth. To be taken
from the ones you love and traded, not knowing if one would ever see the ones they love again. Heartbreaking. And then his struggles as he was
determined to walk upright and be a man of integrity. He had quite a long and rough journey and then was blessed so greatly through it all. wow.
We never know which way the path will turn. Faithfulness is rewarded consistently. Some only experience the rewards after this life. Cont'd.

I appreciate the tenderness of Joseph in loving his brothers regardless of the past and his desire to bless them all. It's dumbfounding to me. I think
I would want to smack them around a bit and then bless them. (It would probably make my ego feel better.) But that's the selfishness and pride in me
that I know God is working on whittling away. It's really not fun.
Praying for the lesson to be learned quickly. I don't know how to do that though.

How do I learn Lord? Help me understand Your ways and cast off my ways. What is it that I cannot see that blinds me?
Show me the things that are hindering my path, so I can release them to you today Lord. I don't want to be here in this
place anymore. I want to live life more fully in my relationships. I want to be able to forgive easily and without hesitation.
Fill me with your grace and love today Lord. Thank you for Joseph's example to me today. Let it soak into my being and
renew my faith and mind today as I journey into deeper forgiveness and love.

Thank you for your openness and prayer today, Jacqui. It reminded me of very similar struggles with selfishness and pride that I face on a fairly regular basis. I'm trying to become more aware that defensiveness and the desire for fairness or recompense is simply my ego showing through, not the response of a Christ-centered attitude. I think that if I can remember this bit of wisdom, it will help me start to kill that prideful nature in me.

Rich, I just now read your comments from a couple of days ago. I admire your willingness to try to step back and just take the Bible the way it sounds to you. That is a good thing to do. I also enjoyed Aaron and Jim's insights on this topic as well, it was a great conversation. I would simply add as Marc alluded to, that when Jesus spoke in parables, he always said so first, and He was usually just trying to convey a simple truth, not deep & profound mysteries. There are many other times in the gospels, usually when talking to just His disciples where Jesus would be very litteral and start to reveal things that were very deep truths that his disciples couldn't even begin to comprehend. I think these are coming up later in Matthew.

One really interesting example to me is the story of Lazarus in "Abraham's Bosom" from the book of Luke. I've heard many people talk about this story as if it's a parable, but I don't think it is or Jesus would have said so. If it is literal, this starts to reveal some of those stranger truths about the universe and the way God works.

I would also add that the Bible makes it very clear that Jesus sacrifice and gift of life was done for all people, and that all people have free will. That makes it tough for me to believe that there are people walking around of the devil's seed, and they have no choice but to do evil. I think everyone has a choice, at least at some point in their lives, though some may reach a point of no return. Just my two cents. I love provocative conversations like this. Thanks for being willing to throw out your thoughts for us to contemplate and consider. I think this is one of the coolest things about this Bible study format. It makes things exciting, and most importantly, helps me keep my thoughts centered on God's purpose and less on my own agenda for the day.

Hey Nate, Marc and Jacqui... Thanks for the Comments you guys. Jacqui, you have such a sof heart. I like that. I appreciate the input and your different perspectives. I really enjoy the opportunity to banter things around and everyone's willingness to be so open minded and easy going. I know I look at things a little differently than most of you, and I appreciate your "flexibility". However, it's my personal contention that the body of Christ tends to over spiritualize things a bit. My thinking is that the scholars and thinkers that came before us built their ideas based on the knowledge that they had at the time, and we've clung to that in spite of the massive increase in knowledge we've had in recent years. As an example, in years past, something like a 1,400 mile X 1,400 mile "city" coming out of the sky and hovering over the earth as mentioned in Revelation seemed preposterous, so they thought of it much differently back then. Flight, let along any kind of space travel was non existent and they never saw Startrek, Star Wars or Starman. In addition, any kind of hybrid race could not be fathomed. But cloning, transgenic's and genetic engineering was not even close to a possibility back then. With the knowledge we have now, all of this is within the realm of possibility if not already reality. I tend to think that the bible is much more literal than originally believed, in spite of some of the extremely crazy things that are referenced. In Revleation 9 it talks about "locusts" coming out of the pit. I think these are some kind of real entities who are currently in the "pit" now, and in fact will be loosed on the earth sometime in the near future. I don't think they are symbolic, and I bet we will be the generation that sees them. (continued...)

I think angels, satan, giants, cherubim, seraphim, elders, saints, watchers, rephiam, anakim, are all real and tangible, as are the hosts of God... I think they are the literal Army of God. Dragons, unicorns, leviathans, flying fiery serpents, and more... there is some really weird stuff in the bible, but I think it's real... a lot more real that everyone else. Sometimes I even think I see the end times unfolding right before my very eyes while we have our heads buried in "the purpose driven life," "The Prayer if Jabez" or some other "Christian" literary work and I think to myself what the aych ee double hockey sticks are we doing? I mean look what's going on right now, in front of our very eyes!... OK, I'm rambling and way off subject, but you get the point. Would love to hear your thoughts...

...rich

Hey Rich, I'm sure we'll talk more about this as we go along. I'll give one short perspective here. I too tend to see many of these things as real and tangible. I'm definitely not one of those people who spiritualizes away the whole of scripture. I think angels are real beings, and that there is a real place where God resides. But I also know that the Bible is a complex book and there are parts that were intentionally written in symbolic language. In the Genesis account when Abraham had angels come to visit him, I take that as a literal account. It was written as a literal account, an oral historical document. So, I take that to mean that actual human-looking guys walked up to Abraham's tent and he had lunch with them. In Revelation when an enormous woman is pictured sitting on a dragon flying through the cosmos sweeping stars out of the sky with it's tail, I take that as a symbolic account. It seems to me that the author was using apocalyptic literary tools to communicate truth about the church, the Roman empire, and the end of all things. This is one of the reasons that context is so important to me. I think we have a much clearer sense of what parts of the Bible were meant to be taken literally and what parts were meant as parables or symbols by paying attention to where those verses are, who wrote them, and what purpose they give in the text for those verses.