The path to a flourishing life (Gen 43:1-14)

Back in my single days, I rather liked a guy. We were in the same church and good friends, but the friendship never developed into anything more. As our circumstances changed and our lives went their different ways, we parted for the last time and I remember crying out to God, ‘Will I ever meet anyone so nice?’. Time was slipping by, and I wanted to cling to the possibility of someone. Yet in that moment of despair the thought came to me out of the blue, ‘God can give better’. In the long years of singleness, it was a message that I treasured as I waited and hoped for that ‘better’ – and I have not been disappointed. In a small way, this incident reminds me of our natural human desire to cling to things and people even in the here-and-now rather than look to what God has prepared for us and to His person who is meant to be our ultimate treasure.

Jacob clings to Benjamin

This attitude of clinging to lesser things is what Jacob struggled with. He refused to let go of Benjamin, especially after the loss of his beloved Joseph, but as grain ran out again, Jacob could not avoid the decision any longer. It became the choice between starvation for all if he carried on like this or the possibility of life if he was willing to let go of his son. His initial reaction to Judah’s insistence that without taking Benjamin they will get nowhere is to blame his sons again for revealing that they had a little brother (Gen 43:4-6). But as Judah sensibly points out, how could they have known the outcome (Gen 43:7)? Jacob is clearly unreasonable, but we can feel his pain of losing everything that he held dear. Joseph is gone and now his last link to his much-loved wife is about to be lost if he lets go of Benjamin.

Jacob lets go of his son

While Jacob does not seem particularly reassured by Judah’s offer of surety (Gen 43:9), he accepts the necessity of what must be. As he did in his encounter with Esau after returning from Paddan-Aram, he resorts to sending presents (and extra money) to appease ‘the man’ and hopefully safeguard his precious son (Gen 32:13-20; 43:11-12). For the first time, he also invokes God, who so far have been absent from his dialogue (Gen 43:13-14) and with it enters a different dimension to the situation. He may be resigned to losing Benjamin and have little hope, yet there is a subtle change in perspective. Most importantly, no matter how he feels, he makes the transition of letting go of his son. Although he does not know it, that terrible sense of loss he feels and the anticipated bereavement will give way to joy and new hope because the God he appealed to, even with little faith in the outcome, is faithful.

The path to a flourishing life

Jacob’s story reveals to us important principles. First, we all face choices from time-to-time between what we cling to in an unhealthy way (whether children, friends, or things we value above all else) and the better things God would have for us. Second, like Jacob, we are not always able to recognise that those ‘lesser things’ we hold onto actually stop us from experiencing what God intended. Paradoxically, we think that the loss of what we treasure will feel like death, but it is often that desperate attachment that is truly deadly. It is not that we have to cut out those people or things from our lives but they need to be ordered as ‘lesser loves’ and God as the One we treasure above all. Third, it is when we allow God to enter the picture that changes can happen. When we recognise that God cares and we cry out to Him, even if with faltering faith, He responds to us in His love. Once again, the greatest message of our passage is that God is steadily working in the heart of His people and in the circumstances to bring about healing and a flourishing life for them.

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