Brad,
         You're dealing with the whole issue of free will verses 
predestination, an argument that has kept the theologians in business 
for centuries.  Calvin and Luther couldn't work it out so I suppose 
that we won't either.  Shoot, do you want to know something 
funny?  The first really bigg, blow out argument that Greg and I had 
back when we were dating was over free will and predestination and we 
finally just decided to kiss and make up and move on to smaller 
things!  GRIN!  What is important in all this is to seek to stay in 
God's will, always seeking His lead and using the brains that He gave 
us to try to follow as best we can.  He is faithful and I'm sure He 
smiles as He watches how much we love Him and want to please Him 
above all things.  I don't always know what's right, but I know what 
He taught and I know that He will lead.  I know that He is pleased with that.
Kathy


At 10:36 AM 1/23/2006, you wrote:
>Kathy,
>That's an interesting perspective. I guess Jacob, being the one to swindle
>his brother's blessing or inheritance from his dad, must have thought the
>mold is broke and so he could continue to break tradition and do as he
>pleased or something? Hmmm. I guess we can look at this  whole thing of how
>things came to be, in two perspectives or frameworks. That is the whole
>lineage to Jesus via Leah not Rachel and for that matter God's hand in
>man's history. Perhaps this  is against what some believe I don't know, and
>perhaps it is a "What came first the chicken or the egg thing", but had God
>purposed things to play out as they had, or had he continued to provide
>opportunity for man to make the right choices and follow his leading each
>time man came up short? I think of the time of the flood when he said he
>was sorry he made man and then wiped the slate clean other than a few prime
>specimens of humans to give it another whirl.  I mean was that planned? He
>knows everything yes, but was that entire failure of man purposefully
>planned by God? If prophecy showed Jesus would be handed over by a betrayer
>for 30 pieces of gold, if Judah wasn't the one to have it in him to go
>through with it, could one of the others been  presented with the
>opportunity? Did God make this large design of swindled blessings,
>betrayals, and shortcomings, and otherwise specifically choose the players
>which we read about, or was it by their own choice that they chose the
>roads they did and God used that? It kind of gets mind boggling if you
>think of freewill he has given us, and yet he is in control of
>everything.  Talk about questions we could ask God when we see him, but it
>won't much matter then and we probably won't be in much shape to play the
>reporter. It is interesting to look at characters from their own little
>perspective in their part they play in history. I think I'll read that
>account again Kathy and watch Reuben more closely. Thanks for the homework
>assignment. lol.
>
>Brad
>
>
>At 09:55 AM 1/23/2006 -0500, you wrote:
> >Hey, while you guys are talking about the contributions of Judah and
> >Leah, as I have been re-reading the same story, my heart has gone out
> >to Reuben, for the first time.  When you think about it, that guy
> >really got a raw deal.  I mean, think about it!  He was the first
> >born.  He should have received the blessing, the birth right and up
> >to half of the inheritance, according to Eastern custom.  But, Jacob
> >didn't really like his mother so he ignored the boy.  I suppose that
> >Reuben was a teenager when he decided to get it on with Bilhah, but
> >chances are, that could have been an act of desperation, and
> >frustration on his part.  It was kind of an, in your face, I'm a man
> >now too, sort of thing.   Maybe a kind of "peeing on the father's
> >turf," kind of challenge.  Chris went through that kind of an
> >attitude a lot with us.  Not  toward me necessarily, I just mean that
> >pack mentality attitude  of challenging the leader.  Some boys are
> >just like that.   Then, as he gets older, he is the first brother to
> >plead for Joseph's life and is secretly hoping to be able to sneak
> >Joseph back to Jacob and come off as a hero so that, maybe Jacob will
> >finally notice him and love him and recognize him as a person, but
> >no, that is not to be.  Then, in the end, he gets nothing.  Jacob
> >won't even acknowledge him on his death bed except to say, you
> >screwed up and I'll never forgive you for it, even with one foot in
> >the grave.  Reuben must have ended up a very bitter person.  He had
> >to suck up to his little brother just  to stay alive.  Jacob was
> >really a lousy parent, you know that?  Incredible.  I'll say one
> >thing for the bible, it doesn't hide the truth!
> >Kathy
>
>Brad
>
>    A lot of kneeling will keep you in good standing