Esau Ran to Meet His Brother
Daily Scripture
Genesis 33:1-4, 8-11
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Jacob looked up and saw Esau coming with four hundred men. He 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 on ahead of them and bowed to the ground seven times as he approached his brother. But Esau ran to meet him, threw his arms around his neck, kissed him, and they wept. … Esau said, “What’s the meaning of this whole group that I met?” Jacob said, “To ask for my master’s kindness.” Esau said, “I have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have.” Jacob said, “No, please, if I’ve gained your approval, take my gift from me. Seeing your face is like seeing God’s face, since you’ve accepted me. Take my gift of greeting that was brought to you, since God has been generous to me and I have everything I need.” So Jacob pressed him, and he took it.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
Jacob and Esau were twins, and for most of their lives Jacob had been the one looking for an angle. When their father, Isaac, grew old and nearly blind, Jacob disguised himself as his older brother and walked away with the blessing their father meant for Esau. Esau was so angry that he vowed to kill him, so Jacob fled, and he stayed away for twenty years.
When Jacob finally headed home and heard that Esau was coming to meet him with four hundred men, he sent wave after wave of animals ahead as gifts, hoping to buy his brother’s goodwill before they ever came face to face. Then he spent the night before the meeting alone, afraid of what the morning would bring.
When Esau came into view, Jacob bowed to the ground again and again, bracing for the worst. What he got instead was his brother running toward him, throwing his arms around his neck, and weeping. Esau had spent twenty years with every reason to stay angry, and when the moment came, he let it go. He even tried to turn down the animals because he already had plenty, and what he had just given his brother was something no amount of livestock could have bought.
Jacob knew exactly what he had received, and he told Esau that seeing his face was like seeing the face of God. He kept pressing his gift until Esau accepted it, and he called it a blessing, the same Hebrew word used for what he had stolen all those years before. This time the blessing was freely given.
Esau was showing that forgiveness is a gift we give out of love, even when we have every reason to hold on to the hurt. God meets each of us with that same kind of welcome. We’re called to offer it to the people we’ve kept at a distance.
- Esau had twenty years to hold on to his hurt, and when the moment came, he ran to his brother. Is there someone you’ve been holding a hurt against, and what would it look like to offer them forgiveness as a gift?
- Jacob put off facing his brother for twenty years, and the meeting he dreaded turned into a reunion. Is there a conversation you’ve been putting off, and what might help you take the first step this week?
Prayer
God, thank you for meeting me with open arms. Give me a forgiving heart, willing to let go of old hurts the way Esau did for his brother. When a relationship in my life needs mending, give me the wisdom and courage to take the first step. Help me offer forgiveness as a gift of love, the way you have forgiven me. Amen.
GPS Insights
Janelle Gregory
Janelle Gregory serves as Resurrection's Human Resources Lead Director. Janelle enjoys traveling, watching sports, learning, playing board games, and spending time with her son and her husband, Brandon. She finds that her heart is constantly wrestling with the truth that she needs a Savior, and the times when she's at her very best are when she's just too tired to put up a fight.
Have you ever had an entire argument with someone who wasn’t even in the room? I have. And for the record, I made some excellent points. I knew exactly what they were going to say, how I was going to respond, and what I would say when they inevitably (and foolishly) tried to defend themselves. I had anticipated every possible objection. I had my opening statement, my supporting evidence, and a pretty impressive closing argument.
The ONLY thing missing was… the other person.
Isn’t it funny how we do that? We replay conversations, imagine confrontations, and we rehearse what we wish we’d said. We can get worked up over something that happened weeks, months, or even years ago that we experience all the anger and frustration as though it happened yesterday.
Meanwhile, the other person is likely going about their day, completely unaware that we’ve just had a heated argument with them. At the same time, we’re exhausted and angry. I wonder how much time and energy we’ve spent keeping old hurts alive?
Of course, sometimes our fears are justified. People really do hurt us and trust gets broken. And forgiveness doesn’t necessarily mean everything goes back to the way it was. Some relationships need boundaries, and some aren’t safe to restore.
But there’s a difference between acknowledging our hurt and continuing to feed it. I recently heard Father Joe Krupp offer a definition of forgiveness that really stuck with me: “Forgiveness is a refusal to nurse resentment.” When we nurse something, we give it attention. We feed it. We help it grow. Those imaginary arguments we have in our head are the food resentment craves.
Forgiveness means we stop nurturing the bitterness. This isn’t easy. It’s a choice we make day after day. The memory resurfaces, the anger comes back, and we have to decide whether we’re going to give it another meal.
Maybe there’s an argument that you’ve been rehearsing over and over again. What would happen if you stopped rehearsing it? Not because the other person was right or because what happened didn’t matter, but because you decided that resentment wasn’t going to get any more of your attention. What if, instead of rehearsing our next argument, we moved that conversation to a prayer, asking God to help us stop feeding resentment and invite him to continue to feed our souls with his expansive grace?
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