Shafted!

Have you ever been in a situation where a friend of yours took something of significant value that you felt rightfully belonged to you? It’s happened to me, and I’m sure I’ve done it to others. What happens in that moment? How do you respond? My response is typically one of bitterness and anger. I hold a grudge thinking I deserve what was mine, and hold it against that individual for a long time. But I’m convinced that this isn’t how God wants us to respond.

Read Genesis 27:30-45

If you’ve been reading with us, you know that Jacob decides to take the acquisition of the blessing and birthright into his own hands. Its interesting that both of those were things God had intended for him, but in his haste to acquire them with his own plan, other people ended up getting hurt. How often do we try to get what God has in store for us by our own means, and people are hurt in the process?

But I digress. Esau is hurt by Jacob’s actions. And not just hurt, but enraged. He rightfully should feel shafted. Jacob has tricked him out of both the birthright (the physical inheritance) and the blessing (the spiritual inheritance). Esau is SO mad that he wants to murder Jacob. I think often this is how we respond when we’re hurt, especially by those who matter most to us. The wounds are deeper, the hurts sting longer, and the scars seem to be uglier. We often respond out of bitterness and lash out, hoping to hurt as badly as we’ve been hurt. There’s nothing in that response that comes from God. We see that Esau’s actions cause huge rifts in the relationship he has with his brother Jacob, forcing him to flee. (Though we shouldn’t let Jacob off the hook, since it was his scheming that got him in this mess in the first place)

God is calling us to respond differently then Esau did. He wants us to respond out of love and forgiveness when we’re hurt. God is calling us to give up our rights to the things that we deserve, for the sake of others. Esau himself over time learns to forgive Jacob for the things he had done (Genesis 32-33) The question for us today is, which are you? Think of that specific situation where someone has hurt or taken advantage of you. How did you respond? Are you the Jacob who deceives and tries to get what God has in store for you on your own terms? Or are you the Jacob that trusts God with his life later on in Genesis? Are you the Esau who is so enraged when he’s taken advantage of that he swears to destroy the people closest to him? Spend some time asking God to help you to forgive those who’ve hurt you or taken advantage of you.