QUARREL
Today's reading: Genesis 43-45

"So he sent his brothers off, and as they left, he called after them, Don't quarrel along the way!" Genesis 45:24 NLT

Quarrel-to find fault; to contend or dispute actively; become troubled, to fall out.

Of all the advice wise and forgiving Joseph might give his brothers, Don't quarrel, is what he came up with?

I'm thinking that after all these years of separation, they'd learned their lessons.

Surely brotherly spats had become fewer and fewer after their dalliance with selling Joseph to the traders?

I might guess that their heads seldom hit their pillows at night without thinking about what they'd done to their father?

I'm sure the weight they'd carried all those years about what they'd allowed to happen within their family was heavy on their hearts?

Hadn't their guilt changed them?

They wouldn't fall into the same temptation to sin, would they? They wouldn't be disgruntled over the abundant portion little Benjamin received, would they?

Would we?

Would you and I easily fall back into our old ways? Tendencies? Sins? Would the same things bug us, even after God worked through them in such miraculous ways? Would the toddler in us rise up and scream, It's not fair and stomp our feet? Might we still be carrying around our portable scales allowing us to measure the injustices done to us? Would our old habit of comparing our lives to the lives of another be just as alive?

I know the answer I have to give and I'm guessing it's precisely who Joseph said what he said.