“But if you will not send him, we will not go down; for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’” And Israel said, “Why did you deal so wrongfully with me as to tell the man whether you had still another brother?” But they said, “The man asked us pointedly about ourselves and our family, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Have you another brother?’ And we told him according to these words. Could we possibly have known that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” Genesis 43:5-7
Jacob is the inheritor of the promise to Abraham, but he's also considered a prophet, meaning he hears from God and speaks for God. But here, Jacob is not sensing what God is doing in his life and the Lord doesn’t speak to him directly about it until after Jacob was already traveling down to Egypt (Genesis 46:4). Why doesn't the Lord tell Jacob in this chapter while he is anguishing over the decision to send his son Benjamin with his brothers to Egypt? The answer is that the process is the point, not the end goal, or we could say the journey is what is important not the destination. The Lord wanted Jacob and his sons (including Joseph) to go through the process of wrestling with the trial to develop character.
It's taken me quite a long time to adjust to how the Lord values the journey. I've often asked the Lord "Why didn't you show me sooner?" "Why the circuitous route when a direct path would have been so much easier?" "Why does this have to be so difficult?" The answer to these questions and many others like them is the Lord is the God of the journey, the God of the Highway called Holy. Like a master personal trainer, He arranges the perfect exercise to bring about the growth he desires. May we walk by faith today knowing the Lord has His hand on every area of lives to bring us to a deeper place, a better place with Him.
The Lord made humans as emotional creatures, and as much as we like to think we are completely rational and analytical, emotions are always part of the equation. It takes wisdom to sort through those emotions and come away with the will of the Lord. Jacob and his sons need restoration, reconciliation and repentance and the Lord will use the difficult decisions resulting from the famine to move them in the right direction. Judah needed the opportunity to step up to be a leader in his family by taking responsibility for Benjamin's safety because it was Judah who had come up with the plan to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37). Joseph needed to prove his brothers' character to trust them with his identity. If the Lord told Jacob the entire plan, then he would have acted differently about sending Benjamin and would have likely shared this information with his sons. Everyone would have been in a different mental and emotional state.
Jacob is the inheritor of the promise to Abraham, but he's also considered a prophet, meaning he hears from God and speaks for God. But here, Jacob is not sensing what God is doing in his life and the Lord doesn’t speak to him directly about it until after Jacob was already traveling down to Egypt (Genesis 46:4). Why doesn't the Lord tell Jacob in this chapter while he is anguishing over the decision to send his son Benjamin with his brothers to Egypt? The answer is that the process is the point, not the end goal, or we could say the journey is what is important not the destination. The Lord wanted Jacob and his sons (including Joseph) to go through the process of wrestling with the trial to develop character.
It's taken me quite a long time to adjust to how the Lord values the journey. I've often asked the Lord "Why didn't you show me sooner?" "Why the circuitous route when a direct path would have been so much easier?" "Why does this have to be so difficult?" The answer to these questions and many others like them is the Lord is the God of the journey, the God of the Highway called Holy. Like a master personal trainer, He arranges the perfect exercise to bring about the growth he desires. May we walk by faith today knowing the Lord has His hand on every area of lives to bring us to a deeper place, a better place with Him.
The Lord made humans as emotional creatures, and as much as we like to think we are completely rational and analytical, emotions are always part of the equation. It takes wisdom to sort through those emotions and come away with the will of the Lord. Jacob and his sons need restoration, reconciliation and repentance and the Lord will use the difficult decisions resulting from the famine to move them in the right direction. Judah needed the opportunity to step up to be a leader in his family by taking responsibility for Benjamin's safety because it was Judah who had come up with the plan to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37). Joseph needed to prove his brothers' character to trust them with his identity. If the Lord told Jacob the entire plan, then he would have acted differently about sending Benjamin and would have likely shared this information with his sons. Everyone would have been in a different mental and emotional state.