Do you have a Reuben in your life?

Genesis 37:12-28

Do you have a Reuben in your life?  They may be someone who likes you or they may have distain for you, and even despise you, but are being used by the Lord to rescue you from a person or persons who desire to cause you harm and maybe even death.  Joseph’s brother Reuben was not a fan of his younger brother, and you might say he detested Joseph, yet God put in his heart to be the one who saved him from a sure death, at the hands of his brothers.

Joseph was instructed by Israel to go find his brothers; it seems like Joseph had become the little spy in the family, and dad used him to keep up with his other sons.  So Joseph is looking for his brothers where they had told Israel they would be, and a man found him wandering in the field and asked, “What are you seeking?”  “I am seeking my brothers,” he said.  “Tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flocks.”  (Genesis 37:15-16)

Joseph was told that they had gone to Dothan and that is where he went, but his brothers saw him first and it does not sound like they were excited to see him.  Verses 18-20, gives this account; “They saw him from afar, and before he came near to them they conspired against him to kill him.  They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer.  Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits.  Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams.”

I’m sure each of these brothers believed that the voice they were hearing was their voice, and their thoughts, but it was the voice of hate, the voice of jealousy, the voice of Satan, and they were going to act on that voice and kill the younger brother, the dreamer.  They would have done so, but the God who had put the dreams in Joseph, was also His protector and provider, and Reuben was the tool He used to rescue Joseph from a sure death.

“Reuben, told them not to “Shed no blood; cast him into this pit here in the wilderness, but do not lay a hand on him” – that he might rescue him out of their hand to restore him to his father.  So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the robe of many colors that he wore.”  The robe of many colors was a symbol of a father’s rejection of the older ten brothers, of his love for the tattletale, of his outward reward to the young arrogant brother.  They could remember how different it was for them before Rachel was with child; she was always Jacob’s favorite wife, and how her no good son was the only one that the dad had eyes for. 

If they only understood, but then you and I have the Bible, we have read the stories; we still listen to that voice, the one that tells us to be jealous, the one that tells us it is all right to hate our brother, the one that wants us to destroy those we do not understand, or who disagree with us?

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice