What if I were one of the heros of the Bible? What if I were to think like Harry thinks in real time as a major miracle is taking place? What if I couldn’t see it in the 20/20 hindsight that the finished story gives me?

Genesis 41-43, the end of the story of Joseph and his brothers.

I consider and put myself in the shoes of Israel or his son Reuben. Joseph is gone, believed dead. The famine has come. Egypt is the only place with food. My sons have gone to buy food and come home without Simeon and with the demand that Benjamin be taken to Egypt. I have lost a favored son. Reuben betrayed a favored son. I am in misery because of the loss of the favored son or because of my faithless betrayal to father and brother. Benjamin is now endangered, and I, Israel, will sacrifice all to keep him safe, even to be unwilling to risk him to save the rest of the family. Now Simeon is in jail in a foreign country, so the possibility is the loss of three sons and/or all starving from the famine. 

My circumstances are devastating. The famine is here. All appears lost. There is nothing to eat. Loss, failure, and more loss are the only visible possibilities. Where is hope? Where is my vision of the Lord and what He wants? The son who had a vision was lost. How can the family bow down to one who has died? Am I to send my children forward into death and loss without choice because not sending them guarantees death and loss? How can I see the Lord in this time and situation?

What has the Lord kept behind the curtain in my circumstance? What has been the secret of His faithfulness that my faith should have trusted? What is the personal knowledge of Him which should have kept my heart standing on the solid foundation? How can I trust Him when I failed Him during and after His many provisions in my life? How could we have had confidence in Him when the entire world around me spoke confidence and assurance of our death and devastation? How could I now have faith in a turn around when I have suffered years in the loss of Joseph and the devastation of unanswered prayers (unanswered in my experience because the Lord held His miracles behind the curtain for a future moment)? I have had many past miracles and horrors. I have gained my family position through trickery. My sons destroyed a city because of Dinah’s rape. With all the confusion and the way things have taken place, how can I trust God? My sons and I have done terrible things. Is God still working on our behalf? 

Now is the finale when all turns around, and I see the completeness of what the Lord had in mind, the unveiling of Joseph.

What can I do when I am Israel, the father who has failed and lost, to provide and protect? What do I decide to do when no solution will work completely? Should I send the youngest to Pharoah and loose him, Simeon, and possibly more? Don’t send them and see the family I have, including Benjamin starve in the famine with our flocks and all that provides our finances? How do I gamble this while still suffering the loss of Joseph and the personal sense of failure that what the Lord gave me has been degraded by loss and other failures?

Why do I see Jacob/Israel as a man of confident always-faith and myself as no-faith at the point of testing? Why do I have confidence that Jesus will work it out and everything will be okay for Jacob/Israel, and not for me when we face the same type/form of catastrophe/devastation? Am I different from Jacob/Israel? Is the promise of God less for me? Is the presence of God less for me? How do I answer all these questions to find the faith that Jacob/Israel and I need to stand, love, walk forward, trust, and be faithful to Christ our Lord?

Jacob/Israel and all his failures is the answer to this last paragraph of questions. God has given us scripture and the story of his people to teach us about His love and faithfulness. I can trust Jesus through my failures because I see how He has led and kept all these others in scripture through their failures and successes. Jesus has provided a diary of His love and work with people just like me so that I can have confidence. The insight isn’t about Jacob/Israel. The insight is about the character and love of Jesus. Jacob/Israel is the story, but the revelation is about God. It is God who overcomes all the best and worst in humanity to prove and provide His love and redemption. It is Jesus who can overcome any obstacle and accomplish every hope and joy. 

I can rejoice because my life is also growing a birth to grave testimony of the faithfulness and overcoming grace of Christ. 

“But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.” 1 John 2:27 ESV https://www.bible.com/59/1jn.2.27.esv