Sunday Sentiments

 

I've been finishing up the book of Genesis as we finish up this calendar year of 2022. This week I kept going back to one phrase, and it has convicted me, so I wanted to share it with you today!

The phrase comes right at the end of Genesis 45. Joseph has just told his brothers who he is and has sent them back home to pack up their belongings, gather their father, and return to Egypt to live with him in a place of physical provision.

When the brothers returned to their father and told him that Joseph was alive and had managed to become the ruler of Egypt, Jacob didn't believe them. Can you blame him? He had grieved Joseph for so many years, believing he had been killed long ago. That was a lot of information for someone to take in all in one afternoon.

Eventually, Jacob did believe them, and Scripture says when he finally let himself believe, he "revived." But it was the next part that really stuck out to me. 

"And Israel said, 'It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.'"

It is enough.

Jacob had gone through much in his life. Some of it he brought upon himself, and other things were just unfortunate circumstances. He took the birthright from his brother and spent years at odds with him and separated from his parents just so he could stay alive. He was cheated out of the wife he was promised and then ended up married to sisters who spent most of their marriage in a fertility feud. 

Then the wife he loved most died, and he was left to raise 12 sons. Then the son he loved the most disappeared, and his other sons claimed he was killed by a wild animal. Then there was a widespread famine and he had to send his remaining sons to search for food. 

Life was about survival for him at that point. It was about finding a way to make it through this unbearable famine. It was about surviving old age and squabbling children.

And then...a glimmer of hope. News he never dared to imagine he would hear. 

And it was enough.

The famine raged on. His beloved wife was still dead. The pain of history probably still tugged at his heart. 

But it was enough. That one piece of hope was enough. 

I'm convicted to think about what is enough for me today. In all that feels wrong, in all that feels uncertain, in all that seems overwhelming, can I still see the enough from God?

And even if I see it, can I believe it truly is just that? Enough?

I don't know what it might look like for you today, but I encourage you to think about it. 

It is enough. HE is enough.