Genesis: 42 - 50 Discussion Questions and Topics
The End of the Genesis Cycle; Joseph Gets His Due
- This story is one of the most exciting in the book of Genesis (if you ask me, and you didn't, but I said so anyway).
- At the heart of this story is forgiveness - Joseph forgives his brothers for all that they did to him, but he made them go through an awful lot before he did.
- As awesome as the story of Joseph's forgiveness is, how much more awesome is the forgiveness of God, which we have promised to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord?
- There is a great difference between human forgiveness and divine forgiveness.
- God has the power the forgive you of all your sins, both sins against God and against your neighbor. But we mortals only have the power to forgive our neighbors the sins they have committed against us, and the power to forgive ourselves.
- Forgiveness is not easy. It never is. In the end, it is not important that you feel like forgiving, or that you even like doing it or want to do it. The important thing is that you do it. Feeling good about it, and liking the person who sinned against you may never come. But then again, it may come in time. Nothing is impossible with God.
-Fr. Ryan
posted by St. Mark's Youth @ 10:20 AM
3 Comments:
Sunshine,
Not caring for someone is a different story than needing to forgive someone. Sometimes they intersect, but it doesn't sound as if your situation is one of those times. The challenge with people that we find disagreeable is to be able to see God's reflection in them. It's easy to do with people we like - much harder to do with people we don't like. Oftentimes this is because the thing we dislike about others usually has something to do with the very things we dislike about ourselves.
-Fr.R
I like this subject... but I don't know if I'm ready to forgive the person I've been hurt by. When I think about what happened in one way, it doesn't seem like I should worry about it anymore, and that it's not that big a deal, but when I think about it another way, it really hurt me and he continues to be blind about everything, so I don't feel I should forgive him yet. But I'm not really worried about it, b/c eventually I'll forget about it and feel secure enough with myself to forgive him. BUT that time hasn't come yet... so he just needs to stop bugging me about it.
Sunshine -
You find this girl, "Francis," to be annoying and you think she talks too much. This is not a specific sin against you, and so you do not need to forgive her. To think you needed to forgive her might be a bit pompous, because that would, essentially, be saying that to annoy you (in all your mighty glory) was equal to a sin.
The other part of what I was saying is that things that annoy us in other people are often a chance to look into a mirror for ourselves. That is to say that the reason they annoy us is because they are too much like us, or that the part of them which annoys us is too much like a part of ourselves.
For example, I went to school with a person that I didn't like very much either. It took me a while to discover that the reason I didn't like them was because they were smart, competitive, and they knew it. It irritated me to no end! Then, it took me even longer to figure out why those things about this person irritated me so much - it was because this person was the same as me - they were smart, competitive, and they knew it, just like me. Discovering that allowed me to work on my own arrogance and to eventually become friends with this person!
So, in short, it's ok for you to now like "Francis". Just don't hate "Francis".
-Fr.R
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