Living on Mission with Joseph and Relationship Impacting Guilt

Living on Mission with Joseph and Relationship Impacting Guilt

Guilt makes people do really dumb things. Joseph’s brothers are a prime example.

I see two options for how we arrived at this place in our story:

1.     Either the brothers never actually apologized and connected with Joseph relationally. Or,

2.     They did apologize, but neglected to maintain the relationship and fear overtook them.

Option 1

Joseph’s brothers apparently had not fully addressed the pit/slavery issue between themselves or with Joseph. Did they ever look him in the eye and say – Hey, we all know who did wrong here. We admit that it was stupid and selfish and it caused you a great deal of pain and suffering. We are so sorry. Please forgive us.

It appears that this conversation never happened. They must have collectively decided that Joseph was fine with it since he kept saying how God used it for good. So, if he’s fine with it, we’re fine with it and we can all just pretend (FOR YEARS) that it never happened and “all’s well that ends well.”

That approach worked for almost 20 years. (Denial is a wonderful thing, right?)

OR

Option 2

The brothers did apologize and restore the relationship with Joseph.  But, over the years the busyness of life caused them to forget about it all.  They ended up taking for granted the blessings they were experiencing and along the way their relationship with Joseph just dwindled down to nothingness.

When Jacob died, things suddenly got real all over again.

Guilt about the unresolved issues surfaced. Their guilt made them very afraid and a little crazy. They remembered what they had done and reasoned that Joseph would surely want to pay them back now that their father had passed. The boys must have thought “uh oh!” Their safety net was gone. Their DMZ was taken out. Their neutral zone dissolved.  Without their patriarch to act as the glue that held them all together, what would happen?

Thankfully, Joseph really was fine. He really didn’t hold it against them. He had cancelled their debt long ago.

The big problem here is that the brothers bore guilt that was impacting their relationship with Joseph. Whether they never cleared it up with Joseph in the first place or whether their relationship with him drifted apart due to neglect, the end result is the same. Guilt. Fear. Shame. Distance.

It’s the same with our relationships with one another and with God.

If we aren’t intentional about restoring and maintaining relationships with one another, guilt can cause them to fall apart. If we aren’t intentional about confessing our sins to God, we can drift away from Him out of guilt.

Let’s practice Living on Mission and rid ourselves of relationship impacting guilt through repentance, confession, and restoration – with one another and with our Father God.

Pastor Angela