Two Nations, One Family
Daily Scripture
Genesis 33:1-11
“Jacob looked up and saw Esau approaching with four hundred men. Jacob divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two women servants. He put the servants and their children first, Leah and her children after them, and Rachel and Joseph last. He himself went in front of them and bowed to the ground seven times as he was approaching his brother. But Esau ran to meet him, threw his arms around his neck, kissed him, and they wept. Esau looked up and saw the women and children and said, ‘Who are these with you?’ Jacob said, ‘The children that God generously gave your servant.’ The women servants and their children came forward and bowed down. Then Leah and her servants also came forward and bowed, and afterward Joseph and Rachel came forward and bowed. Esau said, ‘What’s the meaning of this entire group of animals that I met?’ Jacob said, ‘To ask for my master’s kindness.’ Esau said, ‘I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what’s yours.’ Jacob said, ‘No, please, do me the kindness of accepting my gift. Seeing your face is like seeing God’s face, since you’ve accepted me so warmly. Take this present that I’ve brought because God has been generous to me, and I have everything I need.’ So, Jacob persuaded him, and he took it.”
Daily Reflection & Prayer
Some family relationships fracture over one deep betrayal. Others fracture slowly over several years. Sometimes, due to big differences and other times, because of small differences. Jacob and Esau got both. The fracture in their relationship started before either of them were born. By the time they were grown men, Jacob had stolen his brother’s blessing, Esau had grown to hate him for it, and twenty years passed before either one tried to make things right. Almost every family carries a version of this somewhere: siblings who stopped speaking, a parent and child who drifted apart over something neither one ever named, cousins who used to be close at every holiday and now barely text. Something felt small at the time. Nobody addressed it, and the family just learned to live around the gap instead.
Genesis doesn’t leave Jacob and Esau stuck in that conflict and tension forever. Twenty years later, the two of them meet again, and reconciliation happens before either brother has offered any real explanation for what went wrong. Jacob spends the night before terrified, certain his brother is still coming for revenge, and sends gifts ahead of himself, one after another, trying to buy back some safety before he’ll even show his face. None of it turns out to be necessary. Esau runs to meet him, and instead of the reckoning Jacob was bracing for, his brother throws his arms around him, and the two of them stand there and weep. Then Jacob does something easy to miss on a first read. He tells Esau to accept back the blessing he stole from him twenty-two years earlier. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks noticed why Jacob could finally afford to do that.
Jacob had already received his own blessing years before, a different one, suited to who he actually was, land and family rather than wealth and standing, and once he knew that blessing was already his, Esau’s had nothing left to take from him.* Whatever tension exists in your own family doesn’t need to be fully understood before reconciliation can begin.
- Is there a relationship in your own family that fractured slowly, over something that felt small at the time, and never actually got addressed? What’s kept it from closing since then?
- Esau ran toward Jacob before either of them had said a word about what happened between them. Is there someone in your family you’re waiting to fully understand, or forgive completely, before you’re willing to move toward them? What would it look like to move first instead?
Prayer
God, there’s distance in my own family that started small and was never named, and some of it has lasted far longer than it should have. I keep waiting to understand what happened, or to feel ready, before I’ll move toward the people I’ve lost touch with. Give me the courage to move first, and the trust that your blessing was never something I had to earn back before it could reach me. Amen.
GPS Insights
Denise Mersmann
Denise Mersmann serves as the Care & Prayer Coordination Director at Resurrection.
Each of us can probably look at our relationships, especially with our family, and think of something that we would have preferred happened differently.
Maybe it was a slight by a sibling when you really wanted them to celebrate you. It could be a time when a joke was made at your expense and left you feeling less than. Perhaps family members had a causal meet up and you were not included. Or there could have been multiple times when your family members seemed oblivious to your circumstances.
Any of these can cause us to feel like we are under attack or that those who should be in our corner just aren’t. Once this happens a couple of times, and we suddenly feel affronted. We are angry that our family members seem to not be tuned in to what we want or need from them.
It’s easy to lean into those feelings of indignation and start looking for more justification, to try to validate our feelings by hunting for evidence of a pattern. No doubt if you grew up in a family — regardless of how great that family might be — if you dig deep enough you can justify some hurt feelings.
That’s often when our relationships really start to go off the rails. It becomes easier to see the times you were disregarded or mistreated than it is to notice the occasions where your loved ones were there for you. We can write off the good moments as no big deal or unintentional while claiming each wrong as calculated or planned.
Before I go any further, I want to be perfectly clear: There are family relationships that are toxic and harmful. This does not apply to those relationships. You have to protect yourself from those people and situations.
But for those relationships that have fractured or come apart because of small miscommunications or feelings of being slighted by your loved ones, I encourage you to take a few moments to sit back and truly consider how you might take a step toward repair. I’m not saying you are at fault, and I don’t think your feelings are unworthy. But I do know that in the worst times of my life, it has been my family that has stood beside me. They have been there loud and proud to celebrate the great moments, and we huddled together holding each other up during the times when we didn’t know how we could go on.
We aren’t a perfect family, and we definitely don’t see eye to eye on everything. I’ve felt hurt and ignored by my family, and I’m certain many of them could say the same about me.
But I can’t imagine my life without my family. Even if I have to remind myself – and them – from time to time how much they love me, in my heart I know I can count on them whenever I need them.
So, I encourage you to look at your own relationships. Maybe you need to take some ownership of where conditions have deteriorated. And do something about it before it’s too late.
Send a text letting them know you are thinking about them and hope they are having a great day. Send a meme that calls to mind a funny experience you shared. Print an old photo and send it to them with a note telling them how fondly you remember that moment. Send a birthday card or put them back on your Christmas card list.
It doesn’t have to be big or flashy, but I encourage you to take the first step. And do it sooner rather than later, because the worst thing would be to wait too long and never get the chance.
© 2026 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
*Jonathan Sacks, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence (New York: Schocken Books, 2015), 132–33.
