dar334

How do social media, email, and texting play a role in our temptation to react rather than respond?

In the study on Joseph I’m currently involved in, we are digging into the life of a male born #11 of 12. Now in typing this, I realize there may have been more siblings, but in Old Testament, Act One, female children were mainly mentioned if they played a major role in pointing to the Messiah as in the story of Miriam, Esther, Ruth, Sarah, just to name a few. But it has been in my gleanings, and a few humorous moments in the Disciple Study, that woman carry little weight in the family structure. Jacob had two wives and both wives gave him their female servants in an attempt produce the most heirs, male children. It was only through trickery and deceit that he had two wives, his true love was only with Rachel, and God prevented her from conceiving until the others had given him ten sons, the Bible, to the best of my knowledge, never mentions any daughters. Rachel bore Joseph, so for obvious reasons, he was the favorite, it was made clearly obvious, and his older siblings despised him. Through bullying and jealousy, Joseph ends up in the “Biblical Hall of the Rich and Famous”, he had a star on the Walk of Fame.

Joseph had to forgive his brothers, because God demands that. Week Three of this study has made some significant points in regards to hurting and forgiving, and several steer us to be careful about doing things that was require us to be forgiven. In my readings, and re-readings, I find my finger pointing at others and then quickly realize that when I do that I have three fingers pointing back at myself.

I’d like to share some of the things that have caused me to reread and point my finger, and please remember I have three fingers pointing back at me.

– Every human on the planet struggles to patiently respond instead of emotionally react.

– When something gets stirred inside of us that evokes either new or old feelings of pain, we would do well to take a pause before making any decisions we might regret.

– How many times has something made you mad and you have your fingers on the keyboard of an electronic device, wanting to react rather than respond?

– We would do well to delete that passive-aggressive social media post that we know is aimed at only a few people, that email with a few choice words that has thrown us in to a typing frenzy of justification, or a text we aren’t sure how to take since it has no smiley emotion. Rather than reacting immediately, we need time to reflect, pray, and ask God for wisdom.

– “Each heart knows its own bitterness, / and no one else can fully enjoy it’s joy.” -Proverbs 14:10

– Spend some time in God’s presence, asking Him to help you learn to be an even better responder.

(By the way, there was a sister of Joesph’s brother Simeon, she was raped, and Simeon took revenge by murdering all the men of Shechem)

The story of Joseph is an excellent one, it’s found in the Book of Genesis. Whether you read it for the first time or if you’ve read it before, read it again. The Holy Spirit will help you to glean something useful.

Open the Book.

-dar