Three sides to every story...

Before I come to FB or Twitter or IG each day...I always pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart are pleasing to God...because though I have truly been gifted with gab...I don't always speak in grace.

Sometimes I struggle with telling the truth IN GRACE...especially when God gives me a Word that I know specifically applies to a person that I've been praying for...but He hasn't told me to give it directly to that person.

Or even when I think the Word is just for me. But He tells me to share it...but I'm like...but God it didn't just happen to me...what about the other people involved...and He says...what about them.

So the words get stuck in my throat...but the Word keeps burning in my heart. How many of you know it's easier to cough something up...to spit it out...than to put a fire in your heart out? Especially one set by God!

So. Here goes nothing.

(You'll need to read Genesis 34 for yourself. Because I have a lot to say...I won't post all the Scripture references.)

Dinah was Jacob's daughter by Leah....

And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her. Gen 34:2.

The Hebrew translation for defiled here is "humbled her". Now. Other translations offers up that  Shechem violated or raped her. But I don't think the rest of the story...(the Scripture)...supports this theory. He was the most honorable of his father's house.

In fact...And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel. (Gen 34:3). Then he asked his father to help him wife her at whatever cost her family set. Even to the point of circumcision of all the males.

That doesn't sound to me like a violent act of lust or power against someone’s will...but rather a tender result of conversation and communication that ended in consensual premarital sex.

(And yes...premarital because Jacob gave Dinah to Shechem in marriage. Her hot headed brothers took her from her husband's home. But I'm jumping ahead of myself.)

Remember the translation of defiled...humbled her...ok...let's revisit that. The preceding 10 chapters in Genesis basically establish Jacob as "the man"...an estimation which can't help but trickle down to his children.

So. Dinah wasn't violated. She was just taken aback by his bold approach. She had gone to see the girls, remember. Do you think for one minute they didn't do what girls do...and talk about the eligible bachelors? Do you think she didn't welcome the attention of the prince of the country? Even reciprocate it?

Now. The men folks on the other hand...only saw that someone else...(someone out of their league)...had the audacity to "take" their baby girl. And how did they find out..."Jacob HEARD". Street talk!

Jacob was prepared to make a proper love connection that would profit everyone. But his sons, Simeon and Levi, lied and plotted behind fake smiles. Then they killed all the newly circumcised males including Shechem and his father...and stood back as the women and children were taken captive and their possessions ramsacked.

Now. They hid behind what they thought was a valid cause...“Should he treat our sister like a harlot?” (Gen 34:31)...and they thought they were defending their family honor...but it turns out...it was just IN them to behave that way.

Even when we don't want it to be...it is what it is. And God will be the judge of all of it. You don't get to take matters into your own hands because you don't like the facts. Because you esteem your sins to be lesser than others. And no amount of scheming or treachery will stop you from getting exactly what you deserve.

Genesis 49:1, 5-7, 28 NKJV

And Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days:

“Simeon and Levi are brothers; Instruments of cruelty are  in their dwelling place. Let not my soul enter their council; Let not my honor be united to their assembly; For in their anger they slew a man, And in their self-will they hamstrung an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it  is fierce; And their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob And scatter them in Israel."

All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them. And he blessed them; he blessed each one according to his own blessing.