Day 15: Outlive the Lie
Reading for Today
Genesis 37: 29-35
Then the brothers killed a young goat and dipped Joseph’s robe in its blood. They sent the beautiful robe to their father with this message: “Look at what we found. Doesn’t this robe belong to your son?” Their father recognized it immediately. “Yes,” he said, “it is my son’s robe. A wild animal must have eaten him. Joseph has clearly been torn to pieces!”
No one enjoys a good, intellectual debate like me, but wisdom has taught me that debates and/or conversations work best only when both parties are willing to be open enough to receive and send information. There have been times in the past where I would waste time and energy trying to convince others to feel the way that I did, but the other party would be so convinced of the evidence that they were presenting, either for me or against me, that they almost convinced me to be skeptical of the very things that I knew for a fact to be true or not true. You see, it was not that I was uncertain of what I believed, but the stubbornness of their heart to receive from me almost acted as a sifter to reveal the parts of me that were not as convinced of what I believed as I should have been. So let me free you just a little bit. When you know the truth, don’t buy into the lies that others are selling. Don’t feel pressured to be who people said you are. Joseph comes to a place in his life where he is attacked by his brothers, not only do they sell him into slavery, but they go back to his father Jacob and convince the father that Joseph is dead.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a few times in my life where people have tried to convince me that I was something other than what God said. They looked at me in my situation and they thought their attack on me had worked and so they were convinced that I was dead. Joseph’s brothers tried to convince Jacob that his son Joseph was dead, but I’m here to tell you today that just because people call you dead, doesn’t mean you really are. Even when they produce their false evidence, when they produce the stuff that you used to have and the stuff that you used to do, don’t feel like you have to attend the fake funeral that people have set for you. When God has chosen you, He will guide and protect you. I believe with all my heart that greatness slammed down to the ground will one day rise again.