Fixing a Dysfunctional Family in Genesis

By now it must be very clear that Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all had dysfunctional families to one degree or another. Adam and Eve had a son who killed his brother, Noah cursed one of his sons for laughing at him while he was drunk, Abraham passed his wife off as his sister and sent away one of his wives and her son, Isaac clearly favored one son over another and was deceived by his least favorite son, Jacob lived his life in depression and bitterness favoring 2 of his sons over the rest.

As for the 12 sons of Jacob, 10 of them hated Joseph, and reluctantly decided to keep him alive, sold him into slavery, and then lied to their father to cover up their transgression.

From Joseph's point of view he was unjustly taken away from his father and his family, unfairly put into prison and stuck for the rest of his life in a foreign land, speaking a foreign language and given a wife he did not choose for himself.

So how did this family survive to become the beginning of a nation?

When Jacob died, 10 of the brothers realized that if Joseph was still angry, they had had no power to protect themselves from the consequences of what they did to Joseph. So they went to him and asked forgiveness...not as we would like someone to ask forgiveness, but clumsily insisted that their father had asked Joseph to let it go.

The book of Genesis pretty much ends with Joseph's act of forgiveness, "You meant if for evil, God used it for good."

And therein we find the solution for broken and dysfunctional families.

FORGIVENESS!