Thursday, April 08, 2010

Facing Our Fear Of Broken Relationships


As we look back over our lives we can see instances of very painful broken relationships - Romantic relationships that ended; Marriages that dissolved; Promises that were broken; Friends that betrayed us; Children that rebelled. And chances are that we have not yet experienced all of the broken relationships in our lives. As long as we choose to love people we will continue to open ourselves up to the very real possibility of broken relationships.

This Sunday we continue our Face Your Fears series by talking about the fear of broken relationships. We will look at one individual’s story in the Bible whose life was characterized by one broken relationship after another.

He fought with his twin brother even while in his mother’s womb!

He was born grasping his brother’s heal as if trying to beat him out of the womb!

His dad loved his brother more than him but his mother loved him more than his brother!

He bribed his brother out of his birthright!

With the help of his mother, he tricked his dad into giving him his brother’s blessing!

He had to go live with his uncle because his brother wanted to kill him!

He fell in love with a beautiful woman but was tricked into marrying her not so beautiful sister!

He ultimately married both sisters but loved the one more than the other!

He had 11 sons and a daughter by four different women – his two wives and their handmaidens!

His daughter was kidnapped and raped!

The wife he loved became pregnant with his 12th son but she died while giving birth to him!

Like his father before him, he visibly loved one of his sons more than the all the others!

His other sons sold the son he loved the most into slavery

His sons than lied to him convincing him that the son he loved was killed by a wild animal!

Talk about a life of broken relationships! And this isn’t even a complete list of all the dysfunction in this one man’s life. But even with all of this brokenness, human mistakes and tragedies, the story ends with hope! The story ends with a family being reunited, rewarded and restored. Hear how this Sunday as we face our fear of broken relationships!

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