Death Of Jacob And Joseph Prayer

Father, Genesis 49:33 says Jacob breathed his last and was gathered to his people. Genesis 50:26 says Joseph died at 110 years old. They embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt. Two great fathers end the book of Genesis the way all of us will end our part of the story. They carried the family across borders and through hard times and into the next part of Your plan. Then they lay down and died, like everyone else. Father, the family lists in the Old Testament repeat the same line — and he died, and he died, and he died — until You broke the pattern in Christ. Jacob's death was real. Joseph's death was real. But the hope of rising again was real, too. Joseph asked for his bones to be carried out of Egypt someday, because he believed the promised land was a real place still to come. Make me someone who lives toward that same place, holding the losses around me without giving up.

Amen.