Have you ever been surprised by how comfortable we become with sin and dysfunction in our lives? It’s like going to a great restaurant and being perfectly fine sitting at the worst table in the place. Last year we went somewhere and they sat us so close to the bathroom we could hear everything, people coming and going, the sounds, the whole experience. And somehow… we just stayed there. That’s how many of us choose to live spiritually. For years we settle right next to the noise of our own depravity. Oh, there are certain sins we’d never tolerate—we know that list. But over time we grow strangely at ease with a whole host of behaviors and attitudes we once would’ve never dreamed of accepting. That’s exactly what we see in today’s passage. Joseph’s brothers didn’t wake up one morning planning to sell him into slavery. Their hearts drifted there slowly—through jealousy, resentment, and a growing comfort with dysfunction. Their story exposes the same patterns in us and reminds us how desperately we need redemption.
